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LIGHT ON THE DEEP 




LIGHT ON THE DEEP 


BY 

GEORGE HENRY 


/ 

GRAFTON 

h 

/ 



'CWasbinGton 

THE NEALE CO., PUBLISHERS 

431 ELEVENTH STREET N. W. 
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Library ofCongreee 

’wo Copies Received 

OCT S3 1900 

Copyright «ntry 

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; OUl*lA DIVISION. 

NOV 19 i 900 



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Copyright, 1900, by The Neale Co. 


LIGHT ON THE DEEP 


W 

i 

The Triton 


/\yj y yacht Lorelei was cruising leisurely in Pacific 
Vi" ** waters. 

The great rocks of Santa Catalina towered aloft in 
the distance. On their rugged sides the abalone builds 
its pearly home, and men, regardless of risk to life and 
limb, climb up the high smooth walls in search of the 
prize. I was unable to see why they should take the 
trouble. 

Abalone hunters are not the only misguided people 
who go to Santa Catalina. Poets go there and write 
verses about it, — verses full of clouds and air and sky 
and foam and waves, and all those filmy things that 
look so pretty and amount to nothing. They rhyme, 
and may be scanned, if any one cares to waste time 
doing it, and look nice when they are printed, but I 
never have seen any way in which they could pay for 
the trouble. People do so many things that don’t pay. 

The long, slow waves of the tranquil sea rolled shore- 
ward, where they were broken into white masses of 


6 


LIGHT ON THE DEEP 


foam, and sank back into soft billows of palest emer- 
ald. The great ocean lay around me, still, deep and 
mysterious as life. 

A moving object was faintly visible, approaching my 
yacht. As it drew near it seemed to develop the sem- 
blance of a man. What ’longshore animal could be 
swimming so far out at sea, and no ship in sight ? 

When the gallant swimmer came aboard I was sur- 
prised to observe that his garments presented no sign 
of having been in the water. The material resembled 
fish-scales, and shed water as effectively. He laughed 
at my expression of surprise, and said : 

“ In our kingdom we all wear this kind of costume. 
You landsmen, when you come to us, are so saturated 
that we are compelled to wring you out to save water 
enough to prevent a drought.” 

“ Where is your kingdom ? ” I asked. 

‘‘Under the sea.” 

‘ ‘ What is its name ? ’ ’ 

“ Neptune.” 

‘ ‘ May I ask for what country you are bound ? ’ ’ 

“ The United States of America.” 

‘ ‘ Then I may have the pleasure of being useful to 
you. I am an American.” 

He shook hands with me cordially. He was such a 
good fellow that my heart warmed to him, notwithstand- 
ing his sensational remarks. He was not so tall as the 
average landsman, lithe and slender, and so graceful 
as not to give an impression of undue lack of height. A 
mass of amber-tinted hair curled in soft rings where it 
touched his shoulders. His face was brilliantly fair, 
and would have been too suggestive of girlishness, as 
compared with the rugged American countenance, but 


LIGHT ON THE DEEP 


7 


for an expression of extreme youth, and certain force- 
ful lines about the mouth which promised to develop 
later into firmness. 

‘ ‘ How did you know about us ? ” 

‘ ‘ One of your countrymen came down to our sub- 
aqueous kingdom from a ship that had been wrecked 
and told us about your great nation.” 

“ I should have thought he would be drowned.” 

“ So should I. When I asked him how he escaped 
he said he was a stockholder in the G. H. R. R. and 
was used to water. I don’t know what he meant.” 

‘ ‘ Do the people of your country speak English ? ’ ’ 

‘‘No. My friend, the Stockholder, taught me what 
little I know.” 

I assured him that he spoke very well, and asked if 
the Stockholder had returned. 

“ No ; he is still there, inventing a machine for the 
manufacture of deep-sea pearls. When he gets it fin- 
ished he is going to New York and get a corner on the 
market. I do not know what a corner is, but I hope to 
learn many good and useful things while I am in your 
great nation.” 

‘‘There is no doubt that you will. How is the 
Stockholder getting on ? ” 

‘ ‘ He is doing well. He says pearls are produced 
chiefly by irritation, and as there is likely to be no lack 
of irritation in his country, owing to the tariff and 
strikes and populists and war investigations and im- 
perialism and anti-expansion and little things of that 
kind, he expects to be successful. I don’t know what 
those things are, but they must be good or you would 
not have them in your great nation.” 

“ Certainly not,” I replied with conviction. 


8 


“Light on the deep 


I invited my new friend to be my guest for the re- 
mainder of the voyage, and to accompany me to my 
home where he might study the true principles of gov- 
ernment. 

He told me his name, but as I could not pronounce 
it without dislocating my vocal organs I suggested 
calling him Mr. Waters, as being a name in good 
standing in my country, and as appropriate to his 
aqueous origin. 

He was deeply interested in the principles and 
methods of our government, and was never weary of 
hearing me tell how amicably we all live together, of 
the rapidity with which our day-laborers become mil- 
lionaires, and their sons develop into honored captains 
of foot-ball teams, and of the certainty with which the 
little street gamins grow up into Presidents of the 
United States and city editors and prize fighters. 

“It is a grave responsibility to have the care of a 
nation. My father is a king, and I shall be some day 
if I live. When we heard about your wonderful 
country he said I ought to visit it and get ideas which 
would help me when I am forced to take the place 
which he now T so ably fills, — may the time be long in 
coming. We can never hope to make our country any- 
thing like your great nation.” 

“ Of course not,” I said, with that cheerful accept- 
ance of the inimitable grandeur of all things pertain- 
ing to my native land characteristic of the patriotic 
American. “You can certainly improve your country 
very much. ’ ’ 

Observing his enthusiasm, I almost wished that I 
had been born into a nation which had a few imperfec- 


LIGHT ON THE DEEP 


9 


tions, that I might know by experience the satisfaction 
of improving things. 

It is just possible that a man to whom it has never 
happened to live anywhere but on the summit of Mount 
Everest might at times wish for a height to scale, 
though it were only a step-ladder, merely for the ex- 
citement of climbing. 

I never realized my knowledge of national affairs 
until I set out to instruct some one else. A thorough 
acquaintance with economics is the birthright of the 
American. It is only when he sees another toiling 
painfully to that eminence which he holds from the be- 
ginning that he fully appreciates his superiority. 

‘ ‘ The brotherhood of man is what seems to me the 
most beneficent principle in your system. I hope that 
some day my own people may mingle together in the 
brotherly communion which prevails in your own happy 
nation.” 

I was glad to note how strongly the central point of 
our national life, the foundation of our liberties, had 
impressed his enthusiastic mind. It is seldom that the 
foreigner is capable of taking the proper view of that 
phase of our nationality. 

I told him all about the bond of brotherhood uniting 
our triumphant democracy. I explained to him how 
every man among us is a king, free and independent 
by virtue of the happy accident of birth into our glori- 
ous atmosphere of liberty, or by his own sovereign will, 
choosing to ally himself with the flower of civilization, 
rather than remain in subterranean darkness, delving 
among the roots of monarchic tradition and fossilizing 
himself in the paleozoic stratum of political antiqui- 


10 


LIGHT ON THE DEEP 


ties. I learned that from a Fourth of July orator when 
I was a boy. 

I told him how the poor and honest laborer was the 
equal of the wiliest money-king in the land, and how 
the man who dug his employer’s potato patch was the 
peer of the one who explored the star-sown fields of il- 
limitable space in search of comets and asteroids. 

I told him how beautiful it was to see the President 
of this great nation riding out in his carriage with the 
son of toil whose untrammeled vote had made that dis- 
tinguished servant of the people what he was, described 
the noble Senator as he descended into the coal pit to 
shake the grimy hand of his constituent, and to dig by 
his side as he conversed with him concerning his higher 
interests, and told him how the chivalrous Congress- 
man was always the champion of virtue, and furnished 
a model for the imitation of youth. 

I explained to him the fraternal affection which per- 
meates the social and political affairs in our country, and 
how impossible it is that the selfish rings and strifes 
which, I am sorry to say, prevail in some countries, 
should ever be known in our own nation. 

I think he possessed a more lucid comprehension of 
republican principles as exemplified in American insti- 
tutions then than at any subsequent period of his career. 

We were quite a distance from land at that time. 


LIGHT ON THE DEEP 


II 


II. 

Political Christianity. 

f\V)HEN we went ashore it was delightful to contem- 
plate the interest of the enthusiastic young fellow 
in everything he saw. My enjoyment of his pleasure 
in his novel surroundings was so great that I was 
ready to drop all other forms of entertainment and 
revel in this unaccustomed one. 

“ What is that fine building ? ” 

“ A church.” 

‘ ‘ A church ? The Stockholder did not tell me about 
that.” 

“Perhaps he forgot it. Occasionally a man does. 
We are very proud of our churches. They are the 
finest buildings we have except our theatres. ’ ’ 

“ What are churches for ? ” 

I turned an eye of pity and amazement upon a man 
who was such a heathen as not to know the sublime 
purpose of a church. I felt so sorry for him and so 
anxious that he should come into a knowledge of a re- 
ligion with some degree of saving grace in it that I im- 
mediately began to instruct him in the principles of our 
faith. Suppose he should go wandering down by a 
grade-crossing when the gate-keeper was away per- 
suading a reckless voter that the country would go to 
smash if he did n’t vote straight, and should die before 


12 


LIGHT ON THE DEEP 


he had learned the Creed and the Litany. There 
might have been a comfortable provision made some- 
where for him if he had died in his own country, but 
no landsman is eternally safe unless he knows the 
Creed. 

It was astonishing how much I found myself know- 
ing about it. I had never before realized how thor- 
oughly I understood the religion which most of us have 
fallen into the habit of fancying that we believe. A 
man never does know how truly good he is until he 
undertakes to teach Christianity to some one else. 

“ He came to the poor people. That is the reason 
that the poor people’s paradise is in a Christian country, 
is it not? ” 

I assured him that it was. 

“This wonderful building is for them. That makes 
it of far greater value than the fine stone and beautiful 
architecture. I think it is better to be poor in a world 
like this, because the Founder of your religion was 
poor, and he came especially to the poor people. You 
will take me to see them, won’t you, and to worship 
with them in my feeble way ? ’ ’ 

I could not help smiling in my effort to picture to 
myself the expression of Madame Van Alley ne’s patri- 
cian face, if some ragged wanderer from Poverty Alley 
should appear in the vicinity of her velvet-cushioned, 
silver-labeled pew, — a comfortable and aristocratic 
lounging place for sanctified indolence. 

To be sure, Mrs. Van Alleyne’s progenitors belonged 
to the upper circles of Poverty Alley, but she never re- 
calls that fact. She sometimes makes dignified and 
mysterious allusions to some follower of Henrik Hud- 
son, whose portly form has become shadowy in the 


LIGHT ON THE DEEP 


13 


mists of passing time. As his ‘ ‘ too solid flesh ’ ’ melted 
and was absorbed in the dust of ages his aristocracy 
took form and petrified into an impervious casing, war- 
ranted to stand all climates and wear indefinitely. 

“ Poor people do not come to this church. It belongs 
to the pew-owners.” 

“ What ’s that ? ” 

I explained to him the beneficent financial system by 
means of which our churches are purified from the 
lower element and rendered acceptable to the better 
classes. 

‘ ‘ When your Christ said : ‘ Go ye into all the world 
and preach the Gospel to all creatures,’ did He mean 
to all creatures who could pay pew rent ? ” 

“ No ; He meant that we must send missionaries to 
heathen lands to convert people to Christianity.” 

“ To Christianity and pew rents. I understand now.” 

“Those, and many other blessings. We latter-day 
saints withhold none of the gifts which have been so 
generously and worthily bestowed upon us by our be- 
neficent religion. We offer them to the world gratui- 
tously. So insistent are we in our liberality that we 
thrust them upon our neighbors, whether they will or 
no. Through the cannon’s mouth we project our ce- 
lestial gifts into reluctant lands. We put our gilt- 
edged, velvet-bound and otherwise holy, Bibles on our 
center-tables and shoulder our guns prayerfully and go 
forth, humbly trusting that the Lord will send some- 
body (who owns something that we want) into whom 
we may thrust our sanctified bullets. We do up our 
religion in shells to cast upon the islands of the sea, 
that the souls of the natives may be received into the 
glory of God, and the bodies of our Christian patriots 


T 4 


LIGHT ON THE DEEP 


into fat political jobs. No community is so weak or 
helpless as to be beneath our pious sympathy and 
godly efforts. While a nation has land which may pro- 
duce valuable crops and is furnished with trees bearing 
luxuriant fruitage of market quotations our religion 
will never pass him by as unworthy of Christian benefi- 
cence, unless he has better ships and guns than we 
have. We stretch out our hands across the sea to form 
alliances with other nations who have grown powerful 
and wealthy by spreading the Gospel among all weaker 
people. We give of our abundant store of Christianity 
to assist their pious efforts. My friend, begin young to 
obey the solemn injunction which lies at the foundation 
of our religion : Search the Scriptures, for in them ye 
shall find money and patronage, and your days shall be 
long in the land which the Lord your God hath given 
to other people. ’ ’ 

“ I should think that everybody would want to come 
under your free and happy Government. ’ ’ 

“ All properly constituted people do.” 

“ What do you do when they are wicked and will not 
come ? ’ ’ 

“We shoot them ; — except when they shoot us.” 

‘ ‘ What happens when they come because they want 
to?” 

“We throw over them the Star-Spangled Banner 
with such benevolent energy that they are strangled 
into higher civilization. We attend carefully to their 
morals. We relieve them of the responsibility of voting 
in the government of their affairs, that they may not 
become victims of the evil of a corrupt ballot. We 
take away their offices, that they may not be led into 
the temptation to embezzle the public funds, an evil 


LIGHT ON THE DEEP 


15 


influence which is peculiarly rife in the atmosphere of 
colonial islands. We fill them with our own patriots, 
who, having held the most honorable and distinguished 
positions in political rings at home, are well known to 
have consciences impervious to colonial temptations. 
This serves the double purpose of adding to our own 
wealth and protecting the islanders from vices resulting 
from the possession of great riches. When a wise na- 
tion goes out to civilize and Christianize the world it 
should above all things look well to its finances. We 
suppress their newspapers, that they may not be cor- 
rupted by the influences of the wicked world.” 

‘ 4 The Stockholder said that a free press was one of 
the glories of his country.” 

“He meant on the main land. It is very bad for 
islands. We suspend the school system, because it is 
not up to date according to civilized principles. It is 
better to let Nature train the youthful mind as she will 
than to have it warped by undeveloped methods. It is 
said that when they were left to go their own reckless 
and ignorant way they even taught their children to 
spell the common words of their own language. We 
have risen above that barbaric stage, and can not con- 
sent that our colonial dependencies should discredit us 
by lingering in it after the light of our civilization has 
dawned upon them.” 

“ I suppose it costs your country a great deal of 
money to keep everything up to such a high state of 
culture.” 

“ Oh, no ; we make them stand the damage. We 
only take the profits. That is what Christian civiliza- 
tion on colonial islands is for. We have increased the 
postal rates. This discourages the dangerous habit of 


i6 


LIGHT ON THE DEEP 


letter- writing. Many a great man can trace his downfall 
to a letter. We have raised telegraph tolls. This pre- 
vents precipitate action. Men often injure themselves 
by undue facility in business transactions. We have 
ornamented their treasury with an artistic and ingen- 
iously constructed deficit. Attention to the aesthetic de- 
velopment of the uncultured is one of the most effective 
influences in the higher civilization.” 

“ These things are all helpful to land religions ? ” 

“ There is not a doubt of it. The habit of our po- 
licemen and soldiers of firing upon women passing 
along the street and upon laborers going to their work 
has sent many souls to heaven with the least possible 
delay. It also keeps up rifle practice and increases the 
efficiency of our marksmen, which is a very good thing 
in the tactics of Christian armies. Moreover, the com- 
mercial system introduced among them by our benefi- 
cent efforts has converted many people into angels who, 
but for it, would be still in the trammels of mortality, 
exposed to the immoral influences of the world. It is 
estimated that three times as many people develop into 
the higher spiritual life under our encouragement as 
under the less effective beneficence of their original 
patrons.” 

The look of discouraged bewilderment which over- 
spread the face of my friend led me to fear that he had 
not yet made sufficient progress in Christianity to appre- 
ciate the true advantages of our system. If I could 
only make it plain to him I would feel that a noble work 
had been accomplished by my efforts. 

‘ ‘ There are many ways in which we labor for their 
moral advancement. It is well known that a habit of 
secrecy leads to crime. We discourage this by demand- 


LIGHT ON THE DEEP 


17 


ing that their doors shall be always open for our recep- 
tion. If they are not we proceed to open them. This 
tends to inculcate a childlike simplicity and openness 
of character very desirable in colonists. 

“Curiosity is a vice .which has been recognized as 
dangerous ever since the flowers bloomed in the Garden 
of Eden. We repress this fatal tendency in the unre- 
generate mind by never pandering to it. We keep 
their books according to a benevolently intricate system 
of our own, and if they venture to peep between the 
covers we kindly but firmly request them to mind their 
own business, a suggestion of which they see the force 
at once. 

“ In addition to inculcating high moral sentiment, we 
incite them to business enterprise. We institute for 
them a system of taxation like that which has brought 
our own great Nation to unexampled prosperity, 
whereby the rich man dances and the poor one pays the 
piper. This encourages a spirit of enterprise which will 
take any man with good luck and easy conscience out 
of the ranks of the poor. If it should fail, there are 
patriots among us who can be induced to sacrifice them- 
selves to a sense of duty by taking possession of the 
land and showing the natives just how it ought to be 
done ’ ’ 

“I should think your subjects would soon become 
civilized under such care. ’ ’ 

“ It will be only a short time until they are civilized 
off the earth, and then we will extend the blessings of 
the Constitution over the land and reap abundant 
harvests of wealth and glory as a reward for our good 
deeds.” 

The profound meditation into which my friend was 


i8 


LIGHT ON THE DEEP 


plunged for some moments led me to hope that even this 
undeveloped soul was not impervious to the highest 
phases of Christian civilization. 

I gave him a Bible and when he had read it twice he 
said : 

“ It is a beautiful religion. The hardest thing, so far 
as I have gone yet, is the way in which you apply it. I 
may understand it better when I have studied it more 
and become accustomed to things in this strange world. 
Don’t you think so? ” 

I hastened to assure him that he would. 

‘ ‘ I passed a church to-day which had ‘ Presbyterian ’ 
printed on it in big letters, and then I saw another with 
‘ M. E. Church.’ What did that mean ? ” 

I explained the convenient divisions of Christians 
into various sects, and the useful purpose they serve in 
keeping the religious world awake to its highest spirit- 
ual duties by means of trials for heresy and other Chris- 
tian functions. 

I set forth the awful condition of misguided people 
who imperil their souls by persisting in the vicious 
practice of elevating their thumbs when the theological 
Simon says “ thumbs down ! ” 

I described the revolutionary attitude of a few spir- 
itual anarchists who had begun to evolve from their 
inner consciousness the sinful delusion that brain was 
given to the human race in order that it might think. 

“ I did n’t see anything in the Bible about Episco- 
palians and Congregationalists and all those things.” 

“They were unknown in those days. They are 
modern improvements.” 

“ It makes things so complicated. The religion of 
the Bible seems clear and good and helpful. The im- 


LIGHT ON THE DEEP 


19 


provements are difficult, and what is the use of them ? 
Did not the Founder of your religion know how it ought 
to be ? ’ ’ 

“ He knew enough for that primitive era. In this 
age of progress we have adapted Christianity to the ne- 
cessities of the time. He would never recognize it if 
He should see it in its present form. We have dyed it 
in fashionable colors and turned it wrong side out and 
upside down and remodeled it by the latest modes. 
We have ornamented it with gilt edges and jeweled 
fringes. The religion of the Bible was not adapted to 
the best people of the present time. It distinctly in- 
cluded statements of difficulties which might attend 
the rich man at some periods of his career. We have 
reversed the proposition. Now it is the poor man who 
gets squeezed.” 

“I thought your Leader came to the poor.” 

“ There is where He made His mistake. If He had 
come to the rich he would have fared better. How- 
ever, the rich have had the grace to forgive Him. They 
have embellished His name and caused it to be respected 
in the best circles.” 

“ It all seems hopelessly involved to me ; but that is 
because I am ignorant, I suppose. If it were not all 
right you would not have it so, would you ? * ’ 

“ Certainly not.” 


20 


LIGHT ON THE DEEP 


III 

The Kinematograph 

/VVext to the living object lesson the pictorial art is 
the most helpful adjunct to the educational sys- 
tem. Appreciating this important fact in modern 
training, I had a series of moving pictures prepared for 
the development of my friend in political figures and 
methods. Besides the useful instruction which they 
afforded he found* them a never-failing source of diver- 
sion. 

“ Who is that very stately gentleman before whom 
all the people bow so low. ’ 5 

“That is our Great Apologist.” 

‘ ‘ What does he do ? ” 

“He goes abroad and tells people that our former 
follies were the result of youthful indiscretions and that 
we have repented of them and have sent him to beg 
most gracious pardon.” 

‘ ‘ Then do you get forgiveness ? ’ ’ 

“ Yes ; without money and without price, save for a 
trifling little present, such as a few gold mines and a 
canal or two and the placing of our army according to 
the instructions of the kind friend whom our misdeeds 
have pained. The country to whom the Great Apologist 
is sent is the most beneficent power in existence. It 


LIGHT ON THE DEEP 


21 


has even consented to take charge of our election 
matters.” 

“ Who is the gentleman next to him ? ” 

“He is the Predominant Altruist. He spent some 
years in this country in close contact with our highest 
officials and discovered that the great need of the 
American people was a representative in the Parliament 
of his country. Without such a representative our 
national existence would soon terminate. Then he 
nobly sacrificed himself. He stood for Parliament be- 
cause he had ascertained by careful study and observa- 
tion that the best and most influential people of Amer- 
ica especially needed the services of a member of Par- 
liament. His nation is distinguished for altruism of a 
very high character, and he is the noblest of his race. 
He is also a celebrated hero. He valiantly held the 
sombrero of the celebrated warrior who captured a 
mountain alone and unsupported.” 

‘ ‘ Does he belong to a nation of heroes ? * ’ 

“ Yes ; his country is so powerful that one hundred 
of its soldiers can chase an Afrikander of rural habits 
off of his farm if they have time enough. Many of 
them have been known to kill a woman in single com- 
bat, and their bravery when pitted in the field against 
children is most justly celebrated.” 

“Is that the reason that your great nation needs 
their protection ? ’ ’ 

“ Yes ; some people can not do those things. They 
need to be cared for by the brave and powerful.” 

“ It is a great triumph for you to have this privilege 
of representation, is it not? ” 

‘ ‘ Very great. A long time ago we fought a great 
war because we were not represented. We may now 


22 


LIGHT ON THE DEEP 


congratulate ourselves upon having secured representa- 
tion through the efforts of our best and most influential 
people. ’ ’ 

‘ ‘ Who are they ? ’ ’ 

“ Those who send their thinking to the State De- 
partment to be done at contract prices by the Interna- 
tional Syndicate.” 

“ You do that to save trouble ? ” 

‘ ‘ Partly for that reason ; partly because it is more 
amiably done and gives better satisfaction to our neigh- 
bors. There was a time when we occasionally had dis- 
putes about little things like fishes and surveyors’ lines 
and such trifling incidents.” 

“How do you avoid them now ? ” 

“ By behaving in a Christian manner. We have im- 
proved upon the antique exhortation to peace and good- 
will. When we are smitten upon one cheek we pre- 
sent all the rest of our features at once. We do not 
wait for our coat to be snatched from us before making 
a free gift of our cloak. We just do up the whole 
wardrobe and send it around with our compliments. 
Thus we are always at peace with everybodj' except a 
few undeveloped people in tropical countries who do 
not appreciate costumery.” 

“ Who is that fierce-looking man covered with knives 
and pistols ? ’ ’ 

“ He is our special commissioner to the peace con- 
ference. ’ ’ 

“ What is a peace conference ? ” 

“It is a meeting of the magnanimous world powers 
for the purpose of showing to everybody that they are 
ready to have peace at the highest possible price, and 


LIGHT ON THE DEEP 


23 


thus throwing the responsibility for war on to the 
quarrelsome people who won’t pa)' the price.” 

“ What a fine-looking mail that is with the beautiful 
clothes and the shiny things on his shoulders.” 

“That is the Irrepressible Pacificator. He has had a 
remarkable career as an ender of wars. He can find a 
new end to the same war every time the political neces- 
sity for it arises. After that the people in it can not do 
anything but plain fighting. He is one of the most 
useful men in the great nation.” 

4 4 What does that man behind him do with the big 
blue pencil and the key ? ” 

44 That is the Censor. Were it not for him the work 
of the Pacificator would meet with but little success. 
He represses the idle curiosity of the untrained public 
miud and inspires it with reverent awe. The Irrepres- 
sible went forth guided by the golden rule : Let nothing 
escape that will injure the Syndicate. The fathomless 
mind of the Censor is the mausoleum of the things 
which do not escape.” 

My friend was especially charmed by a very stately 
gentleman with a benignant face and a European air, at 
whose approach the bystanders struck attitudes of awe. 

44 That is our Diplomat. He holds a position of very 
heavy responsibility and his amiability under the pres- 
sure of his duties has often been commended by appre- 
ciative visitors from abroad. He is our representative 
in the International Syndicate.” 

44 He is the head of the Syndicate ? ” 

4 4 No; our neighbor very generously furnishes the 
head ; he is the hand. He passes over national prop- 
erty and creates public sentiment by direction of the 
head. Pie and his official associates also assist in the 


24 


LIGHT ON THE DEEP 


management of the manifest destiny slide, which is a 
patent adjustable contrivance of great merit for con- 
trolling colonial finances.” 

“ Who is that man who looks so perplexed and does 
not seem happy ? ’ ’ 

“ He is a profound scientist who has been suddenly 
called upon to explain why the Star-Spangled Banner is 
so tractable on the northern boundary of our territory 
that it can be furled without the slightest difficulty 
while in a southern climate it freezes so tightly to the 
pole that it can never be hauled down. It is the most 
complicated problem in climatic influences which has 
ever been presented to the scientific mind, and if he 
succeeds before November he will attain immortality 
and a high appointment in the Weather Bureau.” 

‘ ‘ How very despairing that man looks with his hair 
rumpled and his hands pressed against his face. What 
is he trying to do ? ” 

“ He is trying to make it clear to the latent intellect 
of the average American how an issue can be para- 
mount and at the same time so dead that its former 
friends are fleeing in terror from its ghost.” 

‘ ‘ Will he succeed ? ’ ’ 

“ Yes ; he is the same profound scientist who solved 
the new Republican chemical proposition : If taxation 
without representation, taken straight, is tyranny, how 
great an infusion of tobacco and sugar is necessary to 
convert it into beneficence? ” 

My young friend closed his eyes wearily. 

‘‘It is all very interesting and I am much obliged to 
you for showing it to me, but they are all working so 
hard that it tires me. I fear that I am growing lazy.” 


LIGHT ON THE DEEP 


25 


I was afraid so, too. There is nothing worse than 
indolence for a political reformer. 

I was about to take him away when he started up 
with an exclamation of terror. The careless manip- 
ulator had accidentally put in a slide prepared exclus- 
ively for the Syndicate. 

‘ ‘ Sun-scorched fields of the dead ! Ships piled up 
with men burning with fever, dying and being thrown 
into the sea ! A gate in the West opened wide, and 
through it comes a gigantic, ghastly thing with arms 
outstretched and gaunt hands with long fingers drip- 
ping poison ! The people try to flee but every one 
whom a drop of poison touches falls dead ! And there ! 
See the long line of wild-eyed men, gazing vacantly 
around, wringing their hands and moaning hopelessly. 
What are they ? ’ ’ 

I had not intended that my young friend should see 
these things. Not that there is any harm in them, but 
he is not educated up to them. He does not know 
that they necessarily follow in the wake of the world- 
power. A world-power can not exist without subjects, 
and subjects are not easily gained in healthful climates 
where the inventive faculties of man develop naturally. 
The acquisition is hard enough even in the tropics. 
The only respectable thing in politics is the world- 
power, and death and pestilence and insanity are its es- 
sential glories. What undeveloped mind is going to 
appreciate this transcendent truth ? I regret to say that 
there are a few groveling souls — happily, only a few — 
who would be willing for us to relinquish our noble ef- 
fort to imitate our great model, and dispense with these 
concomitants of respectability. It is better not to open 


26 


LIGHT ON THE DEEP 


blind eyes lest they be dazzled by a sudden influx of 
light. 

I turned to take my companion away and found that 
he had fainted. I very much fear for the future of 
his country. It will take many centuries to develop it 
into a world-power. 


LIGHT ON THE DEEP 


27 


IV 

The Great American Privilege 

AVjr. Waters was sitting by the window, looking out 
Vi" " into the street. He was never tired of the 
streets and the people walking to and fro. 

‘ * The Stockholder said every man in his country is a 
king.” 

“He was right. Every man here is a king.” 

“ Big as your country is, he can not have a very large 
kingdom where there are so many kings. ’ ’ 

“Yes, he has. Each one has the whole nation. It 
belongs to all alike. Every man has as good a right to 
it as any other.” 

“ I should think there might be danger that things 
would get a little mixed after awhile.” 

“That is because you do not understand yet; but 
you will. The great advantage of this country is that, 
no matter how little a man knows when he comes to it, 
the exhilarating atmosphere soon awakens his mind 
and he learns so fast he does n’t know himself.” 

“ I do so want to learn. I should like to know about 
the great privileges of the people here and what it is 
that makes them all kings.” 

‘ * The chief blessing of every man who is so fortunate 
as to belong to this great nation is that he has a vote.” 

My young friend looked awe-struck as he considered 


28 


LIGHT ON THE DEEP 


the novel word, and then asked if I would be good 
enough to tell him what that was. 

‘ ‘ Every man can put into a box a piece of paper 
bearing the name of the one whom he wishes to have 
any office. The man whose name appears on the 
greatest number of these papers holds the office till the 
time comes to vote again. He does not hold the office 
because he happens to be born into a certain family, 
nor because he leads an army and fights his way in, 
but only because more people want him than want any 
other man for that place. The vote of the Pennsyl- 
vania miner who never saw the sun six times in his 
life, and can not read a headline in a newspaper 
counts just as much as the vote of the greatest political 
economist in America.” 

He looked somewhat puzzled. I had observed that 
an expression of uncertainty was becoming habitual to 
him as he advanced in political study. 

‘ ‘ I do not understand how that can be a good thing. 
I know it is good, because you are proud of it, but I am 
so unused to republican ways that it does not seem to 
me such a happy thing as it seems to you.” 

‘‘You will understand it better after you get to 
voting. ’ ’ 

“I? ” 

‘ ‘ Certainly. Why not ? ’ ’ 

‘ * It would be very good of your great nation to give 
me such a privilege, but it would be a long time before 
I could use it, and perhaps that time would never come, 
because my stay here must be short. ’ * 

“ You could have it without staying very long. We 
are not selfish with our privileges. In some of our 
States all a man needs to do is to say that he intends 


LIGHT ON THE DEEP 


29 


to become a citizen. In most cases he need n’t even 
say it in a language which we can understand. Then 
he can vote for Representatives in Congress to make 
laws for the whole nation. The man who can not read 
the ticket he puts into the ballot-box has as much direct 
power in making the laws that govern us as the finest 
scholar in the State, though the scholar may have spent 
a lifetime in studying and upholding our laws.” 

“ Most of your voters, though, were landsmen to 
begin with, and they seem to get along better than we 
do. I am not very bright, and it would take many 
years for me to learn how to vote, and for whom to 
vote, and what measures are best for the country. That 
is the real excellence of your nation. Every man has 
a vote ; so every man must comprehend the principles 
of government, the history and laws of the nation, and 
the causes which have led to the evolution of society 
and the distinctions of party. There must be a great 
inspiration in holding such a privilege. We have a 
King born to his position. We know nothing about 
responsibility as regards the political status of our land. 
Even if I wished to become a citizen, I could never 
know enough to be a voter, not having spent my youth 
here to learn things.” 

‘ ‘ The crowning boast of the American system is that 
you don’t need to know anything. We are even more 
democratic intellectually than socially or politically.” 

“ I should not know for whom to vote.” 

“ I could tell you.” 

“ Then you would have two votes.” 

“ No ; one of them would be yours.” 

“ I should not know what to do with it if you did n’t 
tell me, so it would be just the same as your having 


3 ° 


LIGHT ON THE DEEP 


two. I read that a man was arrested for trying to vote 
twice.” 

“ Of course. One vote is enough for anybody. No 
man is permitted to vote more than once at the same 
election. It is a crime.” 

“ If I don’t know anything about American politics 
and you tell me for whom to vote what is the differ- 
ence ? One of your writers says a vote is the expres- 
sion of an opinion. Whose opinion did he mean ? ’ ’ 

‘ ‘ The opinion of the man who votes, of course. ’ ’ 

“ Then it is as I say. If I express your opinion it is 
not a vote, because a vote is the expression of the opin- 
ion of the voter. So I can never vote.” 

Having reached this triumphant conclusion, my 
friend was silent for a time, evidently submerged in pro- 
found study of some simple question in political econ- 
omy which the American mind would have grasped on 
sight. 

‘ ‘ Talking of votes reminds me of something I heard 
to-day and did not understand. Do men carry votes in 
their pockets ? ’ ’ 

“ I should not think so, but I suppose one might if 
he liked. At least, he might put his printed ballot in 
his pocket.” 

‘ ‘ I suppose that was it. Do they carry other people’s 
votes there ? ’ ’ 

“ No ; every one carries his own, whether in his pocket 
or anywhere else.” 

' ‘ ‘ What did a man on the street to-day mean when 

he said of another man, — ‘ He carries the vote of the 
whole ward in his pocket ’ ? ” 

“ He meant that nearly all the people in the ward 
would vote the way he told them they must. ’ ’ 


LIGHT ON THE DEEP 


31 


‘ ‘ How many times a vote would that make ? ’ ’ 

“Some hundreds, I suppose.” 

“Then that man’s opinion would be expressed some 
hundreds of times in one election, and yet that other 
man was arrested because he wanted to express his 
opinion twice.” 

There was a harassed expression upon his face, as 
if he might have been wrestling with some abstruse 
mathematical problem. 

‘ 1 There is really nothing difficult about it. If you 
had been born an American you would understand it.” 

“ I suppose I don’t catch the definition correctly. 
Then there is something else I do not understand. Mr. 
Montford is the Member from this district, is n’t he? ” 

“Yes.” 

“Your friend who dined with us yesterday said he is 
working for the N. G. Railroad bill. ’ ’ 

“Yes.” 

“ You said the State has elected officers who are op- 
posed to the road, and they are fighting it.” 

“Yes, it’s a bad scheme and they don’t like it. Mr. 
Montford’ s district is as much opposed to it as any 
other. ’ ’ 

“Then why is their Representative supporting it?” 

“The question did not come up until after the elec- 
tion. When it did they took one side and he the other. 
It is said that he is bought up by the company that 
wants the road. I don’t know anything about that.” 

“Then he is not representing them, but misrepre- 
senting them.” 

“ Yes, if you like that expression better. It makes 
no difference.” 

“ It seems to me that it would make a difference to 


32 


LIGHT ON THE DEEP 


me if I were a voter in the district. Perhaps if I were 
of your intelligent country my feeling would be differ- 
ent.” 

“ There is no doubt of it. These things will happen 
in a country in which the expression of the will of the 
people is good for a certain length of time. They can 
change it when they have another election.” 

‘‘Other things will change in that time and other 
questions will come up after the new Member is elected, 
will they not ? ” 

“ Most likely.” 

‘ ‘ The people and their Representatives may again 
take different sides ? ’ ’ 

“ Quite possibly.” 

“ Then there is Mr. Alderson and the revenue. I 
suppose that came up after election? ” 

“ No ; they always quarrel about that.” 

‘‘Somebody said that Mr. Alderson and his constit- 
uents do not agree about that.” 

‘‘No; but he hedged on that in the campaign. He 
made one part of his district believe that he took one 
side of the question and professed elsewhere that he held 
the opposite view. He is the smartest man in the 
State. If the superiority of our institutions is to be 
gauged by the brilliance of our statesmen we can not 
claim too much for them.” 

“ What is the use of voting if you may go on being 
misrepresented through a whole lifetime ? ” 

‘‘It is the sign of our independence. The free man 
votes ; the slave is the passive object of legislation.” 

‘‘Then, what the American cares for is to be able to 
say that he can vote. It can’t be any real benefit to 


LIGHT ON THE DEEP 


33 


him if he never knows whether he is to be represented 
or not. ’ ’ 

I chanced to recall a stanza from the most American 
of all American poets. There ’s nothing throws a man 
over like a little poetry. 

“ ‘ Not lightly fall beyond recall 

The written scrolls a breath can float ; 

The crowning fact, the kingliest act 
Of Freedom, is the freeman’s vote.’ ” 


“ That ’s poetry, is n’t it? ” 

“Yes.” 

“The man who did not want the railroad talked 
prose. I get along better with that. That man was 
very much in earnest. I think people usually talk prose 
when they are in earnest.” 

He was silent for a moment, and then said : 

‘ ‘ What a good thing it is to have been born in a 
Republic. You can see so much good in things.” 

“ It is very easy to see the good in things if one only 
looks into them a little. The great beauty of our sys- 
tem of government is its exceeding simplicity.” 

“I am dull.” 

“No ; it is only that you were unfortunate in your 
birth. Many very intelligent people have not suffi- 
ciently good judgment in early life to come to America 
to be born.” 

He was looking curiously out. 

“ What is that coming up the street ? ” 

I looked out and saw a poor old tatterdemalion 
slouching by. 

“ It ’s a man.” 


34 


LIGHT ON THE DEEP 


He looked at me with astonishment and horror in his 
face. 

You said the men in this country are all kings.” 
“They are. That poor fellow who has no semblance 
of humanity except that he moves on two feet, and 
who, if he has a soul, never heard of it, can cancel the 
vote of that grand looking man on the other side of the 
street. The fine man is a Professor of Constitutional 
History in the State University.” 

‘ ‘ It seems to me a great calamity for the nation if 
that is true, and the poor creature does not look as if it 
had done him much good.” 

“ It may seem so to you because, not having spent 
your life in a democracy, you fail to comprehend the 
thrill of triumph which fills the soul of the true Amer- 
ican when he reflects upon his proud position in con- 
trast with the condition of the slaves of other lands. ’ ’ 
“No; I do not understand. I fear I never shall. 
Now, that man does not look to me like a king, nor in 
any way triumphant. He looks hungry — and ragged — 
and — in every way wretched and forlorn and degraded. 
Does he visit you often ? ’ ’ 

“ Visit me ? Great Jupiter ! That scarecrow ? ” 

“ Scarecrow? You told me that in a democracy all 
men are brothers. If he is your brother I supposed 
that he must come to see you sometimes.” 

It was evident that it would take this unsophisticated 
youth some time to arrive at any kind of comprehension 
of the true spirit of democracy as so beautifully exem- 
plified in American society. I remarked with concern 
that he was looking somewhat depressed, and suggested 
that we go to the Club. 

“There you will see men who have come into their 


LIGHT ON THE DEEP 


35 


kingdoms, the leading men of the day, who can give 
you solid ideas of what our great nation is like, the 
representative men of the age, whom you must know 
and like and be liked by. You do not need to waste 
your time and feeling over the sediment of the world.” 


36 


LIGHT ON THE DEEP 


V 

Our Club 

A*\ur Club is respectable. A fellow can’t get into it 
simply by putting up money. He ’sgot to put up 
a pedigree. 

When a man applies for admission we do not ask, 
Who is he ? We ask rather, Who was his grandfather? 
It is only in extreme cases that we go back as far as a 
great grandfather. That is too risky. If the ghost of 
his grandfather does not show up well the descendant 
is promptly blackballed. 

Some fellows had very inconsiderate grandfathers. 
They made no provision for the admission of posterity 
into Our Club. 

There was Jones. His immediate claim to recogni- 
tion was based upon the fact that his father had discov- 
ered something scientific. Jones had never discovered 
anything — scientific or otherwise. There has never 
been an optical instrument invented of sufficient power 
to enable Jones to discover anything. The grand- 
father of Jones was popularly supposed to have been a 
Military Hero. We respect Military Heroes, because of 
their uniform and the erectness of their gait. Inci- 
dentally because they sometimes furnish us with oppor- 
tunities of inducing royalty to permit us to make toadies 


LIGHT ON THE DEEP 


37 


of ourselves at its gates, a privilege which fills the true 
American soul with unspeakable delight. Upon investi- 
gation, however, it appeared that the military services of 
this particular hero had consisted of blacking the boots 
of a subordinate officer. It is said that he did it well, 
but that function, however admirably executed, is not 
adapted to polishing the credentials of descendants. 
Jones was dropped. 

I told the Club that my friend Waters had descended 
from the lofty family of the Clouds, well known in high 
circles, having reigned for generations over very large 
and respectable portions of the globe. 

Bobson was at the Club. Bobson is the celebrated 
author of “Jagsby.” He wears eye-glasses and a lit- 
erary air. 

I was desirous that Mr. Waters should meet Bobson. 
He remained with us for a time conversing in an affa- 
ble manner and polysyllables, and I was pleased to note 
that he seemed favorably impressed. I like for my 
young friend to impress great men like Bobson. 

Mr. Waters looked at him admiringly as he went 
away. 

“ I could almost envy him his fame,” he said, “ but 
a man in his position must feel at times uncomfortably 
insecure. ’ ’ 

“Why?” 

‘ ‘ ‘ Jagsby ’ is his first book. Everybody will be look- 
ing for the second, ready to compare and criticize and 
tell in what way it falls short of the first. I think the 
second book is the real test of a man’s power, — or, per- 
haps, an unfair test, as he will not have an unpreju- 
diced public with which to deal.” 

“ He will not write a second one. He will devote all 


38 


LIGHT ON THE DEEP 


the rest of his life to magazine articles and newspaper 
interviews explaining ‘Howl came to write “Jags- 
by.” ’ ” 

‘ 4 How does a man ever know how he came to write 
anything? ” 

“ We have a brilliant race of authors in these days. 
The ordinary writers of a less advanced age did n’t know 
anything about it. I suppose Goethe could not have 
given you the ghost of an idea how he came to write 
4 Faust.’ Had you asked Shakespeare how he came to 
write 4 Hamlet ’ he would probably have gazed at you 
hopelessly from the depths of a dark and fathomless 
bewilderment.” 

4 4 Your world has made great intellectual progress 
since they lived, has it not? ” 

“Immeasurable progress. A man knows all about 
himself, as well as everything else, now. The motto 
of Socrates would be superfluous as applied to the human 
race in its present stage of development.” 

I was apprehensive that my young friend did not 
know who Socrates was, but his attention was arrested 
by something else just then and I had no chance to ex- 
plain. 

“Who is that very important gentleman with the — 
the one-eyed stare and the cane and the pompous air.” 

“ That is Gamboge, the Eondon artist who is visiting 
here. ’ ’ 

“ Is he a landscape painter ? ’ ’ 

“ No, — ancestors.” 

4 4 Ancestors ? What for ? ” 

44 For good and enterprising Americans and English- 
men who grow wealthy and develop yearnings for re- 
spectability.” 


LIGHT ON THE DEEP 


39 


“ Can’t people be respectable without painted ances- 
tors?” * 

‘‘Never! In a monarchy some people are born to 
ancestors and respectability and need not bother about 
them. Others are forced to secure them by their own 
efforts and with the assistance of Gamboge. In a de- 
mocracy, where one man is as good as another, it is 
necessary for him to achieve ancestors and respectability 
in order to demonstrate the fact that he is better than 
another.” 

‘ ‘ How does Gamboge help a man to ancestors ? ’ ’ 

‘‘Gamboge is deep. He can furnish ancestors and 
pedigree for any man living, who has money enough to 
pay for them, from a railway president to a coal miner. 
He consults the individual taste of the customer. When 
a man orders ancestors Gamboge never tries to palm 
off on him any job lot that he happens to have in 
stock, regardless of suitability in point of history and 
character. 

“ Mr. Latecome arrived by way of the bargain coun- 
ter in a drygoods store. His taste in ancestors would 
naturally be of the heroic order. Gamboge at once 
recognized the martial instincts of his customer, and 
sought for him ancestors distinguished in arms. He 
painted a portrait of a fierce warrior, arrayed in the 
awesome panoply of a high officer in the retinue of the 
Black Prince, surrounded by the corpses of a regiment 
of the enemy whom he has alone encountered on the 
bloody field of Gorestain. With his foot planted firmly 
upon the recumbent body of his last victim he bran- 
dishes his sword and is supposed to be shouting in tones 
of thunder : 


40 


LIGHT ON THE DEEP 


“ ‘ If there is another who would bite the dust, let 
him come on ! ’ 

“‘Another,’ with commendable prudence, and per- 
haps with a philanthropic eye to posing for future gen- 
erations in the noble character of an ancestor, declines 
to sample dust upon the amiable recommendation of 
the progenitor of Mr. Latecome’s respectability. 

“ With the portrait Gamboge threw in a pedigree of 
the most devastating and blood-thirsty character. Mr. 
Latecome hung this inspiring work of historic art in the 
most conspicuous place in his gallery and struck heroic 
attitudes before it and scowled majestically until he 
acquired a dignified and patrician air. 

“Our eminent fellow-townsman, Honorable Cham- 
pignon Nouveauriche, began his distinguished career 
by sacrificing domestic animals to the dietetic cravings 
of the human race. Having ridden to financial import- 
ance on a saddle of mutton, he set out to become an 
ornamental member of the Hereditary Aristocracy. 

“Gamboge perceived at a glance that his ancestral 
ambitions were of a gentle and aesthetic character. The 
effective development of the dim perspective of his past 
upon the canvas of the present imperatively demanded 
pigments of royal purple. 

“Gamboge evolved for him a graceful and cultured 
ancestor from the Court of Charles II., all beruffied and 
bespangled and beplumed and bejeweled and generally 
bedeviled, accompanied with a crest of mysterious de- 
sign and an inscription in a combination of dead lan- 
guages, popularly supposed to convey a sentiment of 
great sublimity. Honorable Champignon Nouveauriche 
posed in a dress suit and languorous attitudes before 


LIGHT ON THE DEEP 


4 ? 

his noble and gracious ancestor and developed a courtly 
bearing. ’ ’ 

My friend Alridge was at the Club. He is the polit- 
ical Editor of The Vindicator, and is strongly radical. 
He says when he gets to a world where a man can say 
what he believes without starving to death in conse- 
quence he is going to edit a paper to suit himself. 
Now he does it to suit other people. 

There is an admirable amount of candor in a man 
who holds views of that nature. Suppose he were sat- 
isfied with his paper as it is, so long as he drew his 
salary, would it not indicate much less spirit ? 

Alridge touched upon a subject in which my youth- 
ful seeker after political light had expressed an interest. 

“ The proper kind of education is the only hope of a 
republic. Voters must know what they are doing. 
They must not rush into an election because they want 
appointments under government, or because they have 
a good opportunity to sell their votes, or because they 
are treated to unlimited drinks by the whippers-in who 
go about drumming up votes.” 

I clapped my hands approvingly. I wanted him to 
come out strong for the encouragement of Mr. Waters. 

‘‘The suffrage ought to be placed upon an education- 
al basis. Was there ever such a travesty upon civiliza- 
tion as the provision for ‘the illiterate voter,’ which was 
found necessary when the Australian ballot was adopted ? 
Was there ever such an infamous shame in all the 
history of the world as a condition so degrading in a 
country presumably ruled by free men? It was a 
national disgrace.” 

I murmured admiration. I always had a reverence 
for independence of character. 


42 


LIGHT ON THE DEEP 


“ A situation so degrading is not only a present dis- 
grace, but it will result in the ruin of all free govern- 
ment. Intelligence is the basis of freedom. Ignorance 
is the inevitable condition of slavery.” 

Thus the Editor, encouraged by my ardent apprecia- 
tion and the unwavering attention of Mr. Waters, pro- 
ceeded at length to expound his convictions, and my 
youthful inquirer listened with devoted interest. As we 
went home he said : 

“ I can not understand the subject as you do, of course, 
but it seems to me that your friend has good ideas. It 
is fortunate that he is the editor of a great paper. He 
can do so much good explaining his principles to the 
people. ’ ’ 

“ Do you suppose he puts sentiments of that kind in- 
to the paper ? ’ ’ 

“Why not?” 

“ He could n’t say those things in print.” 

“ Why not, if he believes them ? ” 

‘ ‘ He would ruin himself. He would destroy the 
paper. He would lose his position. He does not own 
the paper. He is only an editor on salary. If he should 
try to go on an independent tack he ’d get the g. b.” 

“ ‘ G. b.’ ? I beg your pardon ; that is something the 
Stockholder did not tell me. Will you please explain ? 
I want to learn all I can about your language.” 

“ The proprietor would fire him.” 

‘ ‘ Do people burn each other here for differences of 
opinion ? ” he inquired in a frightened tone. 

“ Do you take us for wild savages ? One would sup- 
pose that you were an Englishman, shocked and horri- 
fied by the contemplation of the barbarity of American 
heathen as compared with his own beneficently Christian 


LIGHT ON THE DEEP 


43 


management. I mean be would dismiss him and em- 
ploy some one who would run the paper according to 
the principles of discretion.” 

‘ ‘ Then the proprietor does not think as your friend 
does ? ’ ’ 

“ I don’t know what he thinks about it, but he could 
not afford to say it. It would not be popular and the 
people would boycott him.” 

44 ‘ Boycott ’ ? I am so dull.” 

“They would not subscribe for the paper any more, 
and when the newsboy offered it would say , — 4 You 
young rascal ! Throw away that fossilized rag of aris- 
tocracy ! Give me The Conformist! ’ When they went 
into the grocery and saw The Vindicator on the counter 
they would say , — 4 Do you take that aristocratic, un- 
American paper ? The grocer at the next corner takes 
The Conformist. We will buy sugar of him.’ When 
the man with ten children w r ould take them all to the 
shoeshop and see the offending Vindicator in the hand 
of the dealer he would say , — 4 Oh, I didn’t know you 
took The Vindicator. Mr. Newportye takes The Con- 
formist. Come, children.’ Then the merchant would 
seize upon that erring sheet and tear it into sixty-three 
pieces, and vow by Saint Crispin that that unrepublicau, 
undemocratic, unpopular, unworthy and generally un- 
satisfactory publication should never again disgrace his 
respectable establishment. They would clasp hands 
fraternally and peace would reign in that emporium. 
There would be raging storms of woe in the hearts of 
the proprietors of The Vindicator , and The Conformist 
would have the lead pipe cinch on its unlucky rival.” 

44 The lead — what was it, please ? ” 

“The bulge, you know.” 


44 


LIGHT ON THE DEEP 


“O, but I don’t know,” he cried, linguistic despair 
covering his face as with a veil. 

“The circulation agent of The Conformist would 
swear before a notary that one hundred million copies 
of his paper were distributed on the previous day, and 
as many more would have been sent forth had not the 
entire force of the office fallen prostrate from the fatigue 
of trying to supply the demand. The circulating agent 
of The Vindicator would try to follow his example, and 
go him a million better, and get caught in a perjury, 
and it would be all up with The Vindicator .” 

“ I should think it would be all down.” 

“ Down, then. It ’s just the same.” 

“Just the same whether a thing is up or down ? ” 

“ It ’s gone to pot, anyway.” 

He still looked as if something were not quite clear 
to him, and it occurred to me that he might not yet 
comprehend my classic phraseology, so I added by way 
of explanation — 

“ In the soup.” 

“ Yes,” he replied with uncertain accent. 

It is somewhat difficult for me to explain things to 
foreigners with entire satisfaction. The clearer I am 
the more confused they seem to be. I never could 
understand it. 

“So the office of The Vindicator is to vindicate what 
everybody believes without vindication ? ’ ’ 

“Chiefly.” 

“ It must be very useful.” 

“ It is a power for good. It has more influence in an 
election than any other force in town. It practically 
won the election last year. ’ ’ 

“ It elected the city officers who stole all the money 


LIGHT ON THE DEEP 


45 


out of the Treasury, and the Grand Mogul who was 
intoxicated at the State banquet and had to be carried 
home.” 

“ The Vindicator could not help that. Nobody knows 
how any set of men will turn out, and it is a great 
thing to get what one goes after, anyway.” 

“ The Vindicator has great political influence ? ” 

“ Yes ; the political editor is rich and generous. He 
does not mind any amount of money that is necessary 
to elect his man. He ’s not priggish, either, like some 
people. He ’ll take a glass with any voter in town. 
Went down to the mines just before last election and 
set ’em up with the boys and every man of them got 
shot in the neck before they were through.” 

‘ ‘ Shot ? How dreadful ! ’ ’ 

‘ ‘ Not so very. They only pulled the triggers of their 
pocket pistols rather numerously.” 

‘ ‘ I thought you said it was against the law to carry 
weapons. ’ ’ 

‘‘Not this kind. Anyway, they were glorious, and 
every mining vote went where that editor sent it. ’ ’ 

“ When you first told me about voting you said that 
a certain man held a certain office because the people 
wanted him.” 

‘‘Yes ; that is it.” 

‘ ‘ Now you say these miners all voted The Vindicator' s 
ticket because the political editor of The Vindicator 
‘set ’em up,’ whatever that may be, and because he 
has plenty of money.” 

‘ ‘ They get what they want. Is n’ t that all right ? ’ ’ 

“ I suppose so, but it seems strange to me. It is all 
right, of course. You would not have it in this great 
nation if it were not, would you ? ” 


46 


LIGHT ON THE DEEP 


‘ • Most certainly not. ’ ’ 

My companion looked as if he might be somewhat at 
a loss in his mind, but as he was usually more or less 
at sea on abstruse topics in American Political Science 
I did not try to clear up the subject to his comprehen- 
sion. It is not well to be too explanatory with an 
earnest inquirer. Sometimes he gets on better by 
studying out things for himself. 


LIGHT ON THE DEEP 


47 


VI 

Useful Memoranda 

pfrs WE walked on he remained in silent thought. I 
knew that the leaven of our wise and patriotic 
methods was fermenting in his mind. I triumphed in 
the thought that at some time not very far in the future 
his nation, through my vigorous efforts, might become 
a great, free, independent republic, built upon the model 
of my own glorious country. 

A very small man with a very sharp nose and two 
very sharp eyes, and bristling all over with very sharp 
pencils, came dashing around the corner and ran against 
us. He swerved aside in an amicable manner which 
seemed to indicate that he would express regrets if he 
only had time. We accepted the apology and went on 
our way as soon as we had recovered breath. 

“ Who is he ? ” asked Mr. Waters. 

“An Interviewing Reporter for The Vindicator . He 
has just heard that the Hon. Mr. Bulger is to pass 
through on the train which is due in five minutes, and 
he is going down to interview him till the train stops at 
the next station. Then he ’ll get off and comeback on 
the next train and write up the interview for the morn- 
ing issue. ’ ’ 

“ Will he tell everything that Mr. Bulger said? ” 


48 


LIGHT ON THE DEEP 


“ No ; he will tell everything he did n’t say.” 

“ Why will he do that? ” 

“Because Mr. Bulger will not say anything. He 
never does. He takes the ground that if his views are 
to be erroneously presented he prefers that the inter- 
viewer should draw wholly upon his imagination for 
the facts. He will lean back in his seat and put his 
handkerchief over his face and fall sound asleep and 
will not be aware of the reporter’s presence. To- 
morrow morning there will be a two-column interview 
with sensational head-lines in The Vindicator , beginning 
like this : 

“ ‘ One of our able reporters met the Hon. Jeremiah 
Bulger by appointment at the station as he passed 
through the city yesterday on a very important polit- 
ical mission, which we are not at liberty at present to 
disclose, but which we hope to be permitted to reveal 
at some time in the near future. The Honorable Gen- 
tleman received our representative with great cordiality, 
saying that on this occasion he was most happy to 
make an exception to his rule never to grant an inter- 
view. He stated that he regarded The Vindicator as 
the only just and fair-minded newspaper now published, 
and he would not willingly lose an opportunity of 
putting his views before the public in its columns. In 
response to an inquiry as to his views on expansion he 
said that he is in full accord with the Administration, 
a position which is most gratifying to those who 
are aware of the great influence of the distinguished 
statesman.’ 

“Then everybody thinks what an enterprising jour- 
nal The Vindicator is, as there is no doubt that it is.” 


LIGHT ON THE DEEP 


49 


“You could n’t get along without the Interviewing 
Reporter ? ’ ’ 

“Get along without him ! We might possibly get 
along without the telephone or the biograph, or the 
man with a new solution of the Philippine problem, but 
may the Star-Spangled Banner droop at half-mast and 
furl itself forever around its tottering staff, rather than 
fling its folds over a land bereft of the Interviewing 
Reporter. ’ ’ 

‘ ‘ I am so afraid ’ ’ 

“Afraid of what?” 

‘ ‘ That my country will never be able to adapt 

itself to some of the finest evolutions of civilization. 
We are so undeveloped, you know.” 

“It will be different when you go home with a 
knowledge of all these adjuncts of higher civilization. 
The mere presence of samples of modern improvements 
will furnish a great impetus. To start with, we will 
lend you an Interviewing Reporter.” 

“ O, I thank you very much,” he replied hastily. 

‘ 4 1 could not think of allowing you to deprive yourself 
of any of your choicest blessings for my sake. I would 
rather go destitute all my life than have you make so 
great a sacrifice.” 

The self-abnegating fellow really was so earnest in 
his disinclination to accept such a sacrifice that I re- 
luctantly withdrew the proposition. I should have 
been happy to accommodate him. 

We had been so engrossed that we had inadvertently 
wandered out of the way, and were traversing a side 
street that obliged us to cross an alley. I never did 
like to pass that alley. It is too suggestive of epidemics. 


50 


LIGHT ON THE DEEP 


“ I should think somebody would look after such 
places and have them made clean,” said my companion. 

“Some other people think so, too. That is, when 
they are young. After they have had experience they 
think differently.” 

“Why do not the people who think so appoint an 
officer to attend to things ? ’ ’ 

“They do.” 

4 ‘ What does he do ? ” 

“Draws his salary, chiefly. Sometimes he finds out 
that a man had smallpox, after he is dead and buried 
and all the neighbors are down with the same disease. ’ ’ 

“ I should think a great many people would be down 
with something.” 

“They are.” 

“ Nobody says anything ? ” 

“We all say things. When the condition prevails 
in low places we say that it is caused by the unsani- 
tary ways in which people live in those dreadful local- 
ities, and it is only what they deserve. If it creeps up 
among us we call it a dispensation of Providence and 
exhort our neighbors to live better lives. ’ ’ 

“ Does n’t anybody try to have places kept health- 
ful?” 

* ‘ When people who are not able to get out of town 
in summer find time hang heavy upon their hands 
they write letters to newspapers calling attention to 
grievances against the public health. The subject is 
an interesting one which opens wide fields of hygienic 
discussion, and the practice in letter writing is a liter- 
ary advantage. Think of the harm a man might get 
into in vacation if he had not this innocuous safety valve 
for his superfluous activities. ’ ’ 


LIGHT ON THE DEEP 


5i 


My friend took out a note-book in which he always 
wrote when a subject of importance was discussed. At 
first it had a tendency to make me nervous. I got 
used to it after awhile and did n’t mind it. He read 
the present entry aloud : 

“ ‘ Mem. — In the great nation they try to preserve the 
health by appointing officers and then writing letters to 
newspapers. 

“ ‘ Mem. — They do not get nuisances removed in this 
way, but people develop literary style, and secure an 
opportunity of getting rid of their superfluous activity 
without hurting anything. 

“ ‘ Problem. — To adapt this superior method with 
beneficial results to a people not educated up to repub- 
lican institutions.’ ” 

He sighed deeply as he closed the volume. 


52 


LIGHT ON THE DEEP 


VII 

Brave Defenders 


® s WE passed the railway station a posse of police- 
men came by with two men in custody. 

I love to look at those valiant men in uniform. My 
heart swells with pride as I gaze upon the glittering 
badge of their noble office. I have an intense respect 
for the club with which they heroically bang people 
into virtuous paths and insensibility. 

They are the Keepers of thp Peace, — and everything 
else they can get their hands on. They are the rock of 
safety under the shadow of which we repose with un- 
clouded minds. 

Their accuracy of vision and promptness of action 
rise to the sublime heights of a colossal genius. The 
calm and judicial character of their Olympian minds 
fills me with awe. I envy as I admire, — I also rever- 
ence and adore. In Gaya there is a sacred shrine con- 
secrated to the police. The Gayans have long heads 
and are adapted to high forms of civilization. 

I experience a pleasing sense of security in the pres- 
ence of even the feeblest member of this heroic band. 
When a footpad knocks a man down and runs off with 
his purse the prostrate villain is promptly arrested and 
lodged in jail as an obstructor of the sidewalk. 


LIGHT ON THE DEEP 


53 


When a man shot another on the street yesterday, the 
arm of the law, in the person of one of these gallant 
officers, seized upon a small boy at the next corner and 
brought him to justice for having snatched an apple 
from a stand that was left unguarded in the excitement 
of the moment. Thus do these pure-minded men guard 
the innocence of the rising generation, the only safe- 
guard for the imperial dominion of the future. 

When a girl from a rural district, darkly dyed by 
sixteen years spent in the contaminating society of the 
evil-disposed cow, and rendered callous by debasing 
association with downy chickens, came to town to see 
her aunt, lost her way and nefariously sought direction 
of a passer-by, she was promptly brought to the bar of 
justice by these discriminating guardians of other peo- 
ple’s characters. 

The modest lack of ostentation which characterizes 
these self-abnegating martyrs to duty demands the 
highest appreciation. ’If I had a right to wear so 
handsome a garb I should grow conceited over it. I 
would not be willing to leave it off except for the few 
hours in which nature imperatively demands repose. 

Not so with the artless policeman. He inquires, 
with the poet : ‘ ‘ Why should the spirit of mortal be 
proud?” Receiving no valid reason for that mental 
attitude, he assumes that said reason does not exist. 
He also assumes, with that modesty characteristic of 
eminent merit, that he is mortal. He rises before 
dawn and simply attires himself in raiment in which 
the ordinary man might be clad, and sallies forth to 
catch the unwary. Should the unwary be a misguided 
laborer, hastening through the early morn to his daily 
vocation, of so obtuse a mind that he fails to recognize 


54 


LIGHT ON THE DEEP 


official authority under the guise of civil life and at- 
tempts to evade the august presence of the law, he 
furnishes a target for the unerring official revolver, thus 
aiding in that important qualification of the guardians 
of the peace, fine marksmanship. 

It is the heroism of these noble men which causes 
the deepest thrill of emotion to penetrate the sensitive 
souls of us weak mortals, who reverence but dare not 
emulate. A pleasing instance of this recurs to me, A 
low workman, who plodded along with no more lofty 
ambition in life than to support his family by servile 
labor, fell into typhoid fever. After three months he 
began to recover. In accordance with the instructions 
of his physician, who was probably an accomplice in 
his nefarious proceedings, he wandered out into a pub- 
lic park and presumptuously sat upon a bench therein. 
It is a well-known fact in medical 'science that a man 
who has had typhoid fever three months is in a danger- 
ous condition. Notwithstanding that fact, one of these 
courageous officers, alone and unsupported, with no 
weapon but a simple club, attacked the desperate crim- 
inal and succeeded after heroic exertions in felling him 
to the ground. The reckless outlaw was taken back to 
the hospital from which he had come with the villain- 
ous intent of taking the air, and in a short time was 
carried forth to that only proper resort for such daring 
malefactors — the grave. 

All these reflections are very consoling to the peace- 
ful citizen. They enable him to draw the coverings of 
his couch about him and lie down to pleasant dreams of 
blue chips and golf links. 

The two men who had attracted our attention, and 
who had evidently been arrested in a mad career of vil- 


LIGHT ON THE DEEP 


55 


lainy, looked very much frightened and very much be- 
wildered and very much as if they would like to know 
what was the matter. 

4 4 Who are those men ? ’ ’ 

“Those in uniform are policemen.” 

“ What are they doing to the others who look so 
scared ? ’ ’ 

As I did not know, and was unwilling to let an hon- 
estly inquiring soul go uncomforted with knowledge, I 
talked for a moment with one of the policemen and then 
returned to my friend. 

* ‘ They have been out to the country to arrest those 
two men for a very wicked thing. ’ * 

“ What did they do ? ” 

“ One of them visited the other last Sunday, and the 
host said to the visitor, — ‘I made cider yesterday. It’s 
fine. Made it of sweet apples down by the meadow. 
Never knew before they were cider apples. Never saw 
such good cider in your life. You must taste it.’ So 
he went down cellar and brought up a pitcher of the 
cider and they drank it. Just think of it ! Actually 
drank a pitcher of cider nearly twenty-four hours old, on 
Sunday ! ” 

“ Is it very bad ? ” 

“ No, not at all. It ’s good. That is, the farmers 
think so. Must say I take to something stronger my- 
self. Every man to his taste.” 

“ Why should n’t they drink it if they like it and no- 
body else wants it ? ” 

“ It ’s wicked to drink cider on Sunday. It ’s against 
THE LAW! ” 

“ Was it not wrong for that man to drink whisky last 


56 


LIGHT ON THE DEEP 


Sutiday and go running down the street trying to kill 
people ? 

“ They did n’t do anything to the man who let him 
have the whisky, did they ? ” 

“ Of course not. He had done nothing wrong. To 
be sure, they had to arrest the man who was intoxicated 
and put him somewhere to think it over, lest he might 
kill somebody.” 

“ Is cider so much more wicked than whisky? ” 
“No; but the man who sold the whisky keeps a 
hotel.” 

‘ ‘ What difference does that make if he lets people 
have intoxicating things ? ’ ’ 

“ The man who keeps a hotel complies with THE 
LAW. He has a respectable place. Some of our best 
citizens get drunk there on Sunday. The proprietor 
makes a pile of money and is highly respected. It is 
not the purpose of THE LAW to restrict the privileges 
of good and useful citizens upon whom the city govern- 
ment rests, and who, by reason of the fatigue incident 
to their heavy responsibilities, may feel it necessary to 
imbibe a stimulant on the first day of the week. You 
have no idea how exhausting it is to uphold such a 
government as this for a whole week. The most en- 
couraging sign of the times is the rapidity with which 
high moral influences multiply under the beneficent 
system which prevails. There are more hotels in this 
city than has ever been known at any previous stage of 
its history, and they spring up constantly with the facil- 
ity of mushrooms. Their marvelous increase indicates 
the responsiveness of the American mind to virtuous 
appeals. We have no reason to despair of the future as 


LIGHT ON THE DEEP 


57 


long as we have such evidences of our capacity for de- 
velopment along the higher and purer lines of life.” 

Mr. Waters opened that note- book. 

‘‘I must get it exactly right,” he said anxiously. 
“Some of the most important things in this great na- 
tion are the most difficult to understand, and I must 
have them straight or I never can help my own coun- 
try. Is this right ? — ‘ In the Great Nation it is a serious 
crime for a farmer to offer a neighbor a drink of sweet 
cider on Sunday in his own house, but it is a high moral 
influence for a man to open a hotel and sell whisky to 
another man so he can get drunk.’ ” 

‘‘It is sufficiently accurate. I think it is not ex- 
pressed exactly as it would have been by one thoroughly 
conversant with the intricate phases of the English lan- 
guage.” 

‘‘I very much fear that it will take a long time to 
develop my people to so high a degree that they can 
understand all these things. You know, they have 
never had the education which you Americans enjoy, 
and they are not so bright. I do not really think that 
many of them are much more intelligent than I am, 
and you see how hard it is for me to understand.” 

He looked so discouraged that I hastened to assure 
him of future success. 

“ If you had been born here these things would come 
natural to you and you would not need to learn them, 
but there is no doubt that you will do well, and I shall 
be very proud of you. The only real public good I ever 
did has been in helping you to learn wise and benefi- 
cent methods.” 

Just then three policemen came by with a woman in 
charge. 


58 


LIGHT ON THE DEEP 


One of the officers was a very tall man with a finely - 
developed form that looked like a granite monument 
erected to victory. The second guardian of public 
dignity was thin, with the muscle of a prize-fighter. 
The third was not quite so tall as the others and was so 
heavy as to produce the impression that his chief func- 
tion must be to precipitate himself bodily upon offend- 
ers and pin them to the earth until assistance arrived. 

The prisoner was a very small woman, whose pale, 
thin face and wasted form seemed to indicate that she 
might have been many days without food. There was a 
wild and hungry glare in her eyes which foreboded 
danger. People in this condition sometimes become 
insane and attack those who approach them. This re- 
flection had not deterred these three brave men from 
doing their duty. With no assistance from militia or 
United States Army, they had valiantly charged upon 
this dangerous female and heroically taken her into 
custody. 

I almost wished that it had not happened just then, 
although Mr. Waters had expressed himself as being 
especially anxious to learn all he could about our un- 
paralleled police system. It might be necessary to in- 
troduce something of the kind into his own country after 
it became civilized. There are certain highly refined 
features of rare intricacy in our super-excellent .system 
which it might be well for the unaccustomed mind to 
encounter for the first time at the beginning of the day’s 
work. 


LIGHT ON THE DEEP 


59 


VIII 

The Reformer 

3 ust then we met my Official Friend. 

The career of my Official Friend has ever been a 
marvel to me. I fall to admiring it when I feel suffi- 
ciently athletic to put forth enthusiastic effort. It 
would never have been expected of a man in his posi- 
tion to make the gigantic moral and intellectual exer- 
tion necessary to achieve such colossal victories as have 
crowned his life with glory. 

He was born to the purple. He could with perfect ease 
have followed the example of the lilies of the field. There 
was not the slightest need of his toiling or spinning, 
neither prowling around streets and alleys seeking what 
malefactor he might devour or otherwise circumvent. 
He could have refrained from all these things and yet 
have had the dead wood on Solomon in the matter of 
dress suits. Not the toniest calla in the field could 
have got itself up in the style which he might have 
supported with no more severe effort than would have 
been involved in signing a cheque when the tailor sent 
in his bill. He could have given all of them cards and 
spades in costumery and then have won the game at a 
fancy ball. 


6o 


LIGHT ON THE DEEP 


My Official Friend was not fitted by nature for an 
existence so inglorious. His innermost being yearned 
for a career of philanthropy. He was born to reform 
things. In his early youth he kept the nursery in a 
continual uproar by his tendency to reform all the doll 
babies and music-boxes on the premises, to the con- 
fusion and despair of the owners of those alleviations of 
life. 

In school he sternly refused to join the bad boys 
down by the brook in efforts to impale fishes on bent 
pins. He would have nothing to do with anything 
that was crooked. 

When he went to college he declined election to the 
baseball team. His lofty soul scorned all things base. 

It has been said that he would not consent to marry 
without a stipulation that at no stage of the transaction 
should a ring be introduced. Rings of any variety 
were repugnant to his honorable nature. 

Having thus early dedicated himself to the solemn 
business of reforming the world, that grand and noble 
occupation became a fixed habit with him. I shudder 
in contemplating the awful condition of the human race 
had it not been so. 

With that beautiful sense of hospitality which perme- 
ates the altruistic soul of my Official Friend, he made 
us welcome to the retreat where he allows his monu- 
mental mind to repose from labor, and where we drank 
the marvelous water for which our city is so justly 
celebrated and ate peanuts in the glorious cause of re- 
form. Never had I felt the spirit of self-sacrifice so 
strong within me. Thus is the near presence of a truly 
great man a powerful influence for good. 


LIGHT ON THE DEEP 


61 


“ It is, indeed, an admirable system,” said my Offi- 
cial Friend enthusiastically. ‘‘There is not another 
like it in the world. In fact, I can not sufficiently 
commend your friend’s good judgment in coming to us 
for information in regard to any phase of municipal 
government. 

‘‘I am glad you ask about this particular matter, 
because there could not be a better illustration of the 
excellence of our institutions. I hope to have the 
pleasure of initiating our young friend into many re- 
forms of government. The prosperity of a nation de- 
pends chiefly upon a high-toned administration of 
municipal affairs, in which I shall always be happy to 
instruct Mr. Waters.” 

“ I thank you very deeply,” said Mr. Waters. 

I never knew a young fellow more appreciative of 
educational advantages. When he fails to comprehend 
simple little things which would be quite clear to the 
most ordinary American mind it is merely because of a 
lack of early training in superior methods. 

“That wicked woman,” said my Official Friend, “ is 
a striking example of the depravity of the lower 
classes, and furnishes an illustration of the constant 
care required in keeping our city up to its unparalleled 
standard of moral excellence. 

“ That woman has a child. On Sunday, the very 
last Lord’s day, when the church bells were ringing 
and the holy people in Paris gowns and Prince Alberts 
were wending their pious way to the house of worship, 
and the sweet influences of the day would be necessa- 
rily expected to have an elevating effect upon even the 
most callous hearts, — on that very day that woman 


62 


LIGHT ON THE DEEP 


was caught in the act of selling her furniture to get 
money to buy food for her child. 

“ You would think that any woman, however igno- 
rant, would be capable of appreciating the fact that a 
life preserved by such nefarious methods would be of 
no value to the world. She ought to have reflected 
that death by starvation would be far preferable to life 
by such guileful means. She did not so reflect. She 
wickedly sallied forth into a low and vulgar street 
where the back door of a second-hand shop was secretly 
open, and offered her furniture for sale. You are ap- 
palled by such wickedness and, familiar as I am with 
the depravity of the world, I would not have believed 
it had I not seen the evidence of it and heard her 
shamelessly confess it. She was arrested and will be 
immediately brought to trial. 

“I may claim without boasting that there is no 
other country in the world which has developed so 
high a civilization that justice would have been so 
quickly and efficiently meted out to that depraved 
creature. ’ ’ 

“What — what became of the child?” asked Mr. 
Waters timidly. 

My Official Friend looked at him aghast, failing for 
a moment to realize that there could be a mind of such 
frivolity as to interest itself in so trivial a circum- 
stance. Then he remembered that the querist was a 
stranger to the elevating influences of civilization, and 
resumed his sweet serenity. 

“ I do not know,” he said gently. 

One of the loveliest characteristics of my Official 
Friend is the suavity of his nature, which enables him 
to encourage even the most undeveloped minds. 


LIGHT ON THE DEEP 


63 


Mr. Waters began to write in his note-book, but 
stopped after the first few words, overcome, presumably, 
by a sense of the enormity of the woman. He has an 
uncommonly fine moral sense, and when he has been 
for a sufficient time under the proper influences he will 
develop a high ethic force. 

‘ ‘ There was a murder a few days ago, was there not ? ’ ’ 
I asked, desirous of giving my young pupil an oppor- 
tunity of learning all he could from my Official Friend, 
who was the head, heart, soul, and everything of con- 
sequence, of a police force the like of which had never 
before been heard of since municipal history began. 

‘ * I think there was an occurrence of that kind down 
by the wharf. A stranger was sandbagged and robbed 
of a large sum of money. So I saw by the papers. I 
have not given any attention to it, so really can’t say 
anything about it.” 

“ The murderer has not been caught, I suppose ? ” 

“ I presume not. Those things are getting so com- 
mon that we don’t pay much attention to them any 
more, and it is really of little use. Criminals of that 
class are growing so bold and skillful that it is not only 
difficult but dangerous to interfere with them. I did a 
neat thing last night.” 

He stopped and hugged his higher self in virtuous 
delight. 

“ Please tell us about it.” 

“I dressed myself in a costume I wear sometimes 
when it is not desirable to be recognized in official 
capacity, and went into a quiet little dining-room down 
town, the proprietor of which has seemed to be slightly 
negligent of his duties. 


64 


LIGHT ON THE DEEP 


“ I had scarcely taken my seat when two women 
came in, an elderly woman and a young girl who called 
her ‘ mother. ’ They were dressed in deep mourning, 
and I gathered from a few words they let fall that they 
had just come from the funeral of a relation. The 
train had been delayed and they had just arrived in the 
city, and the old lady was faint with hunger. They 
were staying at a boarding-house where they were not 
expected at that hour, and the girl was afraid, or said 
she was, that her mother would be ill if she went all 
night without food. 

“Of course the sad story, the sombre apparel and 
the pale faces of the two caught the sympathy of the 
tender-hearted caterer, as I knew they would. Al- 
though it was five minutes past ten o’clock, he allowed 
them to take seats at a table and he took their order 
himself and served them with his own hands. 

“You may be sure it did not take me long to put 
those women outside, with a threat that if they were ever 
again seen in a public place at that improper hour they 
would be arrested. I never saw two people so fright- 
ened in my life. I think they entirely forgot to be 
hungry for the rest of that night. 

“As for the landlord, I had him up in court this 
morning and he paid a fine that will be a lesson to him 
for all future time when he feels tempted to give way 
to soft-heartedness. Of course, I was easy on him and 
did not close up his place, as I knew he intended no 
real harm. It seems he used to serve those people in 
some capacity when they were in high life and had 
their own house with servants to have things ready 
for them, early or late, and he has a tenderness for 
them in their misfortunes.” 


LIGHT ON THE DEEP 65 

My young friend looked at him with a terrified ex- 
pression on his face. 

“ Is it against the law to eat after ten o’clock? ” he 
asked apprehensively. 

My Official Friend looked at him pityingly, remem- 
bering his ignorance. 

“It is a grave misdemeanor for a woman, or two 
women, or any number of women, to be seen in any 
place of refreshment, unattended, after ten o’clock at 
night,” he said solemnly. “ It is on no account to be 
permitted.” 

“ Not if they were very hungry and could not get 
anything to eat ? ” 

4 4 A woman of good character will gladly die in up- 
holding THE LAW. I had my men up this morning 
for allowing women on the street at that hour. It is a 
heavy responsibility to keep a large force up to a proper 
degree of efficiency. They will shirk on the slightest 
opportunity.” 

He sighed wearily and drew his hand across his 
thoughtful brow as one who fain would rest. 

I felt sorry for him, although I never could see the 
necessity for his making such strenuous exertions to 
elevate the human race. I really think, though, that 
he could not help it. He was born a reformer. 

If he had only had my easy disposition what a good 
time he might have had with life. 

He aroused himself from his thoughtful mood and 
turned to me with his genial smile. 

“ By the way, I met an old friend of yours.” 

“ Not there.” 

“No; I was at Bellafonti’s two hours later. Young 


66 


LIGHT ON THE DEEP 


Goldie was there. You remember him ? I can scarcely 
call him your friend now. I was thinking for the mo- 
ment of him as he was a year or so ago. He ’s gone quite 
through the fortune his father left him last year. As for 
character, — even the Hyacinth Club has cut him, and 
when the Hyacinth cuts a fellow you can imagine what 
he is ; or, rather, being respectable, you can’ t imagine. ’ ’ 

“ Was he alone ? ” 

“ He ’s never that. He had La Mouchewith him, — 
the little charmer from Rochelle’s, you know. They 
had a swell lay-out. I could not help wondering which 
one of them would pay for it, or if anybody would. ’ ’ 

Mr. Waters had been writing laboriously for a min- 
ute and he now looked up with his eager expression. 

‘ ‘ What did you do to them ? ’ ’ 

‘ ‘ Nothing. Why should I trouble them ? ’ ’ 

“You sent away the two poor women who had 
nothing to eat.’’ 

“That was very different. They had no escort. 
Goldie will serve as an escort if he is n’t good for much 
else.” 

I thought it would not be right to consume any 
more of the valuable time of my Official Friend. I 
told him I hoped we might again have the advantage 
of his kind instructions. He expressed himself as 
greatly pleased to have an opportunity of assisting an 
ambitious young man in noble aims. All he lives for 
is the good he can do. 

I thought, too, that my young student had received 
as much instruction as was good for him at one time. 
He is, I am sorry to note, not so strong-minded as I 
could wish, and sometimes really seems overpowered 
bv the flood of light which bursts upon him in this 


LIGHT ON THE DEEP 67 

highly-illuminated atmosphere. He will get used to it 
after awhile. 

He seemed a little feeble when we reached home, and 
somewhat dazed in his intellect, and I gave him a 
strengthening draught and persuaded him to retire 
early. 


68 


LIGHT ON THE DEEP 


IX 

The Genesis of a Strike 

3 t was unfortunate that the strike in the Star Mills 
happened soon after my young friend came to land. 
It would naturally have a bad effect upon a mind not 
yet imbued with proper terrene influences. 

It was entirely inexcusable. It all happened because 
the wages of the workmen were reduced ten per centum. 
Such a mere trifle ! I spent ten per centum of my in- 
come last year on a yachting excursion in the Mediter- 
ranean, thus giving pleasure to a number of my good 
friends, and never begrudged it for a moment. I am 
glad there is nothing narrow-minded or penurious 
about me. My open-heartedness enables me to do a 
vast amount of good. 

The laboring classes are naturally mercenary. They 
are the Oliver Twists of the commercial world, inces- 
santly clamoring for “More.” 

The head of the Star Mills is a self-made man, and is 
proud of the job, as he has every reason to be. There 
are envious people who have hinted that the Lord could 
have done it better. Envious people will say any- 
thing. 

The Star man built up his colossal business by 
earnest and public-spirited work. He was a philan- 


LIGHT ON THE DEEP 


69 


thropist who began by furnishing the public with 
something that it could not do without. He made a 
noble sacrifice of himself by selling it cheaper than it 
had ever before been put upon the market. He was 
enabled to do this by the timely purchase of a political 
conscience that happened to be on the bargain counter 
just then, by means of which he was permitted to im- 
port laborers of that thrifty class popularly supposed to 
live on nothing. 

One by one the small stocks of less enterprising 
dealers passed into his hands and their former owners 
entered his employ and qualified as important adjuncts 
to a “ full dinner-pail ’ ’ campaign. He carefully looked 
after their commercial interests, even opening a store 
where they were permitted to make all their purchases 
at not more than forty per centum advance upon outside 
prices, thus preventing their squandering money for 
the public benefit. 

He was good enough to secure for them a physician, 
a worthy and impecunious young man whose entrance 
into the professional world had been somewhat ham- 
pered by the reluctance of the college faculty to part 
from him. To emphasize his benevolence, he selected 
a young kinsman of his own, who had been dependent 
upon him while in his pupilage and was glad to secure 
this opportunity of repaying his debt. This had the 
advantage of sending a large number of them to a world 
which is represented by theologians to be more com- 
fortable even than the Star Mills under their wise and 
beneficent administration. 

He provided them with homes which they were per- 
mitted to buy on the instalment plan. The instalment 
plan proved so fascinating a financial diversion that 


70 


LIGHT ON THE DEEP 


most of the workmen kept it up indefinitely, paying 
three or four times for the same cottage. This is a 
useful way to encourage a love of home and prevent 
miscellaneous expenditures of a wasteful character. 

He even took the trouble to train his employes in a 
high grade of political integrity. They were duly 
marshalled in line for the commendably aristocratic 
ticket, their freshly-burnished pails glittering in the 
sunlight of prosperity. It happened in a casual way 
that their patriotism was stimulated by the somewhat 
remarkable fact that the mills closed down some weeks 
previous to election day, with little prospect of reopen- 
ing unless the returns were satisfactory. This resulted 
in the triumph of a very fine class of officials who 
were celebrated for the liberality with which they paid 
their political debts. Thus does Divine Providence 
ever smile upon the truly good. 

In addition to encouraging the moral virtues, the 
Star man had done a wonderful work in the intellectual 
field. He had founded a college on a very liberal sys- 
tem (his systems were all liberal), its only limitation 
being that it should teach a proper scheme of Political 
Economy, — the one by which its generous benefactor 
had achieved success, — if it did not want to run aground 
on a financial shallow. 

Of course this great work, so magnanimously under- 
taken for the good of humanity, entailed heavy expense 
which must be met in the best manner possible. The 
best manner possible would seem to be to permit the 
workmen to show some appreciation for the benefits 
which had been heaped upon them by contributing to 
the establishment of this noble educational center. It 
was at this juncture that the base ingratitude of the 


LIGHT ON THE DEEP 


7i 


laboring class became most appallingly manifest. In- 
stead of rushing forward with exultant hearts and 
beaming faces to bear their proper share of this 
monetary burden assumed for the highest altruistic 
purposes, they became reluctant, discontented, ill- 
natured, and finally displayed their anarchistic natures 
by going on a strike. 

They pretended that they could not live on their 
wages after they were reduced. Everybody except this 
callow young stranger knew that was all a delusion. 
They have talked that kind of nonsense until they 
have begun to believe it and fancy that they can per- 
meate the minds of sane people with the grotesque 
idea. 

The fact is, the very greatest advantage of being a 
laboring man is the little money it takes to keep him. 
He is the only person in the poor man’s Paradise who 
can get anything out of life. He has not the responsi- 
bilities that weigh other men to the earth. He is not 
obliged to keep up a million-dollar establishment. It 
is not demanded of him that he sink thousands every 
year in unsatisfying society functions. 

He is not obliged to send his sons to Oxford to be 
imbued with the proper political sentiments. All they 
will ever have to do will be to vote with their employers 
and they will be taken care of in that munificent man- 
ner to which the American laborer is accustomed. He 
need not place his daughters in French conservatories. 
The public provides a school to which he may send his 
children or not, according to his own convenience. It 
does, not cost him anything except the little he pays for 
taxes, if he has anything on which to pay taxes. If 
his employer has just built a stately mansion and finds 


72 


LIGHT ON THE DEEP 


himself reduced to economizing on wages and the work- 
man consequently is not able to buy clothing for his 
children he can let them stay at home and nobody 
bothers him about it. 

The rich man wastes his precious life staying awake 
nights wondering how he would better invest his sur- 
plus this year, and studying the possibilities of saving 
anything out of the recent fall in stocks. The laboring 
man goes to bed and drops into peaceful slumber, un- 
disturbed by a riotous surplus. If all the railroad stock 
in the world should fall to six and a-half he would not 
lose a dollar. You can never make him appreciate the 
advantages of his condition. He is utterly undeveloped 
on the side of finance. 

Wish I could live on as little as a laboring man can. 
I ’d have the finest racer in America. 

Reflect upon the sympathy that class of people get. 
They are not worthy of it, yet deluded people with 
sentimental leanings go on giving it to them just the 
same. 

Think of that woman over in the Fourth Ward who 
starved to death just when Goldmund was talking most 
eloquently about the dignity of labor, and the beautiful 
lives the hewers of wood and drawers of water might 
live if they would develop their highest possibilities. 
She did it out of spite because the man she worked for 
refused to pay her when she brought the work half a 
day later than the time agreed upon. Said she had 
been ill and could not finish it earlier. As if that was 
his fault. These people have vicious tempers. 

It has always been a marvel to me how employers 
can go on being as generous as they are when they get 
so little appreciation for it. They could not do it were 


LIGHT ON THE DEEP 


73 


it not for the Christian hope of a reward in a better 
world. When Jim Pelton was killed by the falling of 
a timber in the mill it was not in the least the employer’s 
fault. Jim had as many eyes to see the condition of 
the timbers as any one had and he could have stayed 
out. Many another man would have taken the risk 
rather than have seen his family starve, so there was no 
compulsion. If men go into dangerous places in this 
free country it is all their own fault. 

Nevertheless, the employer went to see Jim’s widow 
and told her that he would always be her friend and 
that she should have a place in the mill at half the 
wages that Jim had earned. She kept still about the 
matter and went to work and kept the place for two 
whole years. At the end of that time the Ward Boss 
told the owner that if he did not place some laborer’s 
positions at his disposal he, the Boss, would throw all 
his votes to the opposition, which, if elected, might be 
depended upon to examine into the methods of the mill 
management. It thus became a public duty to remove 
some of the employes, among whom was Jim’s wife. 
Did that ungrateful woman thank that kind-hearted 
employer for having sheltered her from the cold world 
for two long and happy years ? Not at all. She dis- 
played the ingratitude of her class and went off and 
tried to sue that lofty philanthropist for damages be- 
cause of Jim’s misfortune. Happily, it was too late 
then for her to do her benefactor any harm beyond the 
pain which must have been suffered by his sensitive 
heart. If she wanted to display her malevolence she 
should have done it before accepting his bounty. Yet 
such people are covered over with pity by the soft- 
hearted members of the present generation. 


74 


LIGHT ON THE DEEP 


How was it with me when I lost a hundred thousand 
betting on Goldenfoot ? Did anybody pity me ? Not 
a bit of it. I had to sell my stock in the Silver Eagle 
just before it flew into the empyrean, but nobody cared. 
People only said it served me right. 

If the laboring man should happen to fall into 
trouble, which is so unlikely as to be scarce worth 
considering, he has an easy way to comfort. He can 
get whisky cheaper than bread. It takes the finest of 
Tokay and Sillery to bring me ‘ ‘ surcease of sorrow, ’ ’ 
and they are expensive. 

‘ ‘ If your people are so happy and so much better off 
than anybody else, why do they act so ? ” 

“ They want velvet carpets and pianos, and every 
man and woman of them is clamoring for a silver 
spoon.” 

‘ ‘ Is that the reason the man whose baby died because 
he could not buy the things it needed when it was ill 
went mad and shot himself. ’ ’ 

“ There is not a doubt of it.” 

“ That is very strange. If he did want those things 
so much I should think it would have been better for 
us to give them to him. I would have given him a 
velvet carpet if I had known, and I am sure that kind- 
hearted jeweler down street would have sent him a solid 
silver spoon with a monogram on it if he had known of 
his trouble. You would have sent him your own piano 
rather than have had that happen.” 

“ No; I think not. You might have been imposed 
upon to that extent because you are unaccustomed to 
the ways of that class of people. The jeweler and I 
know better. We have had experience, and we know 
that if we should give them the things they want they 


LIGHT ON THE DEEP 


75 


would shoot us because we did n’t give them a marble 
palace in which to put them.” 

‘ ‘ Are they so bad as that ? ’ ’ 

‘ ‘ Doubtless they are. ’ ’ 

“ Then I don’t see — I wish I were not so blind, I am 
so anxious to understand — I do not see what good it 
does for them to have all these privileges if it only 
makes them bad. I should not want my people to be* 
come so.” 

‘ ‘ Then the only way is to keep them under in the 
first place.” 

“You say this is the paradise of poor people; that 
they are kings. How do people keep kings under? ” 

There was a weary look on the face of the innocent 
youth, as if he might have begun to feel that the strain 
of study was too hard for him. It makes me sad to see 
an expression like that on so young a face. 

One trouble with Mr. Waters is that he fails to com- 
prehend the first principles of political economy. If 
he had a proper understanding of the matter he would 
know that the prime object of that noble science is to 
make poor people as scarce as possible, and what quicker 
mode of reaching that philanthropic end could there be 
than starving them to death or driving them to suicide ? 

I tried to divert his mind with pictures, of which he 
was very fond, and with music, for which he had a 
passion. 

“ Your world is a lovely world, after all,” he said as 
we parted for the night. 

“It is the best possible world, and America is the 
garden spot of the whole planet.” 

I was glad to see him go to his room with a pleased 
expression on his face, for I had begun to fear the result 


76 


LIGHT ON THE DEEP 


on the unaccustomed mind of such close attention to 
social and political matters. It would come out all 
right. No one could stay in this highly-progressive 
nation and not become imbued with the proper ideas 
concerning its economy. 


LIGHT ON THE DEEP 


77 


X 

A Pseudo- Philanthropist 

3 wish Heartley would stay away from Mr. Waters. 

He does him no good. Besides, he keeps me un- 
comfortable, which is yet more important. 

Heartley poses as a philanthropist. 

I like a true philanthropist, — one of those genial, 
happy men who see the good in things and never worry 
you about the bad. 

The truly benevolent man is the one who amuses 
and entertains you and keeps you pleased with yourself 
and him and all the rest of the world. He knows that 
this is the best conceivable of worlds, and that our own 
great nation is the best possible of places in it. If he 
happens to know of an unpleasant feature he draws a veil 
over it and never acknowledges that it is there. 

He knows that everything is as it ought to be or it 
would not be so. He believes that the Creator knew 
how He wanted this world and that He made it to suit 
Himself, and nobody else has any call to interfere. 

Suppose he does leave us in the possession of a few 
illusions. The illusions of life make it beautiful. It 
is painful to have our ethic and intellectual illusions 
ruthlessly torn from us by savages who insist upon ob- 
truding actual facts upon society. 


78 


LIGHT ON THE DEEP 


Heartley belongs to that unpleasant class of alleged 
philanthropists who insist upon going about the 
world uncovering things. They never can let any- 
thing alone. They are bent upon knowing and forcing 
you to know all the ailments and misfortunes of man- 
kind. 

Suppose I behaved in that way. I had a headache 
this morning from smoking that confounded cigar with 
Bob last night. No man has a right to be at large who 
is capable of offering a friend, or even an enemy, a cigar 
like that. What is the purpose of penitentiaries and 
insane asylums and institutions for the feeble-minded, 
when such a man is permitted to go about the world 
like a raging lunatic, seeking whom he may cover with 
confusion and despair ? 

Because my head ached, did I bandage it with red, 
white and blue bunting and label it in mammoth gilt 
letters “AN ACHING HEAD ” and hang it out of 
the bay window to attract attention and excite the 
sympathy of the passers-by? Certainly not. I just 
let it alone, and after awhile it felt better ; just as 
everything else would if it were let alone. 

I know a fellow who dropped a million on the Street 
last week when Alleghany took a tumble. Did I go 
around town parading his calamity before the world 
and taking up collections for him ? Not at all. We 
went to the Club and had a cocktail and smoked some 
prime Havanas and I wished him better luck next time. 
He left for Monte Carlo that evening, and will come 
back at the end of his vacation ready to try his luck 
again and pick up five millions in the place of the one 
he lost. 


LIGHT ON THE DEEP 


79 


That is the courageous way of meeting disaster. It 
is the brave men who win in the game of life, just as 
they ought. 

Heartley and his well-meaning but misguided friends 
can not see this. They must be forever stirring up 
things. 

Heartley goes down into those horrid places that are 
not fit to be brought to the attention of respectable 
people, and comes back and talks about them in the 
most persistent and annoying fashion. 

He tells about the poor little girls who work seven 
days and nights in a week for a dollar. 

What of it ? Would they do it if they did n’t want 
the dollar ? 

There is one fundamental principle underlying all 
free government that Heartley is utterly unable to 
comprehend, and that is that there is no compulsion 
placed upon any man, woman or child to do anything. 
There are certain things from which people must be 
compelled to refrain, because they are subversive of 
law and order. There is no restraint laid upon any one 
as long as he is not a law-breaker. The days of 
slavery are over. No man can say to another, “You 
must do this or that.” He may say, “You may do 
this or that, if you like,” and the other has his choice 
to do it or leave it. Could there be more absolute free- 
dom than that ? 

One of our great men, very many times a million- 
aire, has written a strong and beautiful essay, as the 
essays of rich men always are, for a Review, and it was 
printed. I have an intense respect for a man who can 
write things and get them printed. Anybody can write 
things. I have done it myself. 


8o 


LIGHT ON THE DEEP 


This paper was about the laboring man and his ad- 
vantages. One of his most distinguished advantages 
consists in the fact that a man with so many millions 
condescends to write about him. Of course, he never 
appreciates the honor, but the man who sacrifices his 
time and strength and wears out his pens writing about 
the ingrate gets his reward in the satisfaction of doing 
good, which is, after all, the best compensation a man 
can have. I know that by experience. 

This rich man wrote about the question of which 
Heartley is so unpardonably ignorant. I do not think 
Heartley ever read that essay. If he had, he would 
have acquired some slight degree of information about 
the principles of republican government. Heartley 
never reads the proper things. 

This essay sets forth some of the differences between 
the serfs on monarchic estates in former times and the 
independent working men of to-day. For example, the 
free laborer can make a contract. If he chooses to be 
independent he need not make a contract, and the 
would-be employer is compelled to go about until he 
finds some less obstinate fellow who is willing to make 
a contract. There is no compulsion in it, — for the 
laborer. It is the employer who has a right to com- 
plain. He is constrained to abide by the will of the 
laborer. Can he go into court and sue out a man- 
damus to oblige a recalcitrant workman to make a con- 
tract with him ? Can he successfully represent the ad- 
vantages to himself of having that laborer do that 
piece of work for him? By no means. The Judge 
would call his attention to the fact that this is a free 
country, and no man has the power to compel his fel- 
lowman to make a contract to do anything. You never 


LIGHT ON THE DEEP 


81 


hear the employer complaining of the situation. He 
is the real victim of the prevailing state of affairs, and 
yet he bears the burden of it quietly. It is the work- 
man, assisted by Heartley and other misguided people, 
who goes about finding fault. 

Could a serf on the estate of a nobleman in the days 
of William Rufus make a contract? Not at all. He 
had to do as he was told. He never had the faintest 
conception of the glorious privilege of making an inde- 
pendent contract as freely and voluntarily as a multi- 
millionaire. He did not know what it was to turn upon 
the heel of independence and walk off with the proud 
step of scorn, leaving a bonanza king, baffled and 
abashed, with a damaged second-hand contract in his 
possession and no immediate prospect of disposing of it. 
He knew not what it is to live. 

Moreover, continued the public-spirited essayist, the 
serf went with the estate. If a nobleman transferred 
his estate the serfs followed it. Seemingly, the only 
way they could get out of the situation was to leave 
the world, which, it is a noticeable fact, many people 
do not want to do. 

I have had difficulty in explaining to Mr. Waters the 
marvelous improvement in the condition of the laboring 
man in the past few centuries. That is, of course, to 
be expected. Mr. Waters really is such an ignorant 
child, and has had so little opportunity of learning the 
noble system of economy which dominates life on land 
that he is excusable for ignorance. I always have 
great patience with him because of his birth. There is 
no such apology for Heartley. He was born on shore. 
His lack of information is the result of unflagging per- 
severance in the wrong direction. 


82 


LIGHT ON THE DEEP 


I would not hurt Heartley’s feelings by mentioning 
my opinion, but I really do think it is nothing less 
than criminal for a man to spend his life in the enjoy- 
ment of such educational privileges as ours and then 
be ignorant of the fundamental principles of freedom. 
It argues an unworthiness of personal liberty, an unfit- 
ness for self-government, that is wholly unbecoming in 
an American. 


LIGHT ON THE DEEP 


83 


XI 

Evolution of the Laboring Man 

/\V|R. Waters read that instructive and inspiring 
vj/ ^ essay, as he does everything that promises to give 
him light on the principles upon which republican 
institutions are founded. 

‘ ‘ What is a contract ? ’ ’ 

I explained to the best of my ability, and had the 
satisfaction of seeing that Mr. Waters comprehended 
clearly and without the difficulty which he sometimes 
finds in things that are quite simple and easy to people 
who are accustomed to dwelling on land. I think there 
is something in the atmosphere that develops the minds 
of landsmen. 

‘ ‘ What if he does not wish to make the contract ? ’ ’ 

‘ ‘ Then he is perfectly free not to do so. ’ ’ 

“If it is a good and fair contract he will want to 
make it, of course ? ’ ’ 

“ He will, if he is an honest man and wants to work 
for his living, as all poor men ought to do. ’ ’ 

“Suppose it is a bad contract and unjust to him ? ” 

“Then he need not make it.” 

“ If he does not make it he will have no work ? ” 

“ Probably not.” 

‘ ‘ Then he will starve ? ’ ’ 


8 4 


LIGHT ON THE DEEP 


“ Most likely.” 

‘‘Then the freedom of making a contract means that 
if an employer wants to drive a hard bargain with a 
poor man the poor man may refuse to make the con- 
tract, if he would rather starve to death than agree to 
what the other says.” 

‘‘That is it. He is perfectly free to do as he 
chooses.” 

‘‘I should think the serf had as much privilege as 
that. He could have killed himself if he was not willing 
to do the thing his master wanted him to do. What is 
the difference ? ” 

‘‘There is a very great difference, as you will see 
quite plainly when you have had wider observation. 
Another thing is that the serf went with the estate if it 
was sold. A man can’t sell out his employes in that 
way now.” 

“ That is a great advantage, is n’t it ? ” 

“ Very great, indeed. It marks a high era of human 
progress.” 

Mr. Waters studied the subject gravely for a time, 
evidently enjoying the idea that he had caught hold of 
a fundamental principle of freedom. After awhile he 
said : 

“ Was n’t it something of that kind that troubled 
Mr. Malwood who was in here last night ? I could not 
understand exactly.” 

“ He is afraid of losing his position. He is with a 
man whom he has served faithfully for fifteen years. 
He has worked very hard and has the confidence of 
everybody in the business. His employer would not 
part from him for any money, as long as he kept up the 
establishment, but he is growing old now, and does not 


LIGHT ON THE DEEP 


85 


feel that he should remain in the business world. His 
health is not so good as it used to be, and he feels that 
he ought to give place to some younger man and spend 
the rest of his life in his home, where he can take care 
of himself and enjoy the society of his family. He is 
rich enough to retire, so he is about to transfer the 
business. ’ ’ 

“ If he does Mr. Malwood will lose his position ? ” 

“ Probably. A stranger could not be expected to 
take the interest in him that the man does with whom 
he has worked for so long a time, and there are other 
good workers whom the new proprietor will be likely 
to know better than he knows Malwood.” 

‘‘Then it would be better for Mr. Malwood if he 
should be transferred with the business, rather than be 
left free to go and find some other place, would it 
not ? ” 

“ I suppose Malwood thinks so.” 

‘‘Then I don’t see what advantage the poor man has 
now in not being transferred with the business, if it 
simply means that he will be thrown out of his place 
and have a hard time finding another, and maybe not 
find it.” 

‘ ‘ The reason you do not see is because you have not 
had a chance to look into those things, as you will have 
now that you are among people who have made them 
the study of a lifetime. When an American has no 
more appreciation of his privileges than to think as you 
do it is because he is naturally depraved and wilfully 
ignorant. He has had opportunities all his life that 
are quite new to you. 

“ In former days, if a rich man killed a poor one, 
merely as a diversion and to display his superiority, 


86 


LIGHT ON THE DEEP 


nobody gave the matter any attention. It was too 
common an incident to be worth mentioning. There 
has been a great revolution in such matters. Even an 
officer in the regular army of one of our monarchic 
neighbors is not permitted to kill a laboring man with 
impunity. A member of that superior class has recently 
been sentenced to prison for three years for running a 
man through with his sword, when the man had actually 
had the impudence to brush accidentally against the 
chair of the officer in a public room. Of course I, 
though only a common republican civilian, do not ap- 
prove of such strong measures against an officer and a 
gentleman, especially when the valiant hero had the 
delicacy to stab the man in the back, but it demon- 
strates, at least, the fact that the laboring man has 
nothing to complain of in this advanced era of human 
rights.” 

As I say, I can readily overlook an absence of com- 
prehensive grasp in the mind of Mr. Waters, because I 
consider his lack of opportunity, but when Heartley 
manifests such weaknesses it affects me more seriously. 

Heartley was as intelligent naturally as any of us, 
but he has been in this mistaken kind of business 
so long that his judgment has become warped. He 
utterly fails to perceive the glorious principles that 
underlie our national existence. He is ignorant of the 
loftiest sentiments that ennoble human life. He has 
not the remotest idea of the highest object and effect of 
work. I am sorry to say that, like most of his deluded 
class, he takes the lowest and most mercenary views of 
life and of human aspiration. He has no poetry in his 
soul. He does not keep the dormer window of his 
mind open, that the breezes of the upper atmosphere 


LIGHT ON THE DEEP 


37 


may blow through. If he did he would not be so 
troubled over the financial condition of the laboring 
classes He would understand the true significance of 
work. He would comprehend the lofty mission of labor 
as contemplated by the higher world of thought. 

He would recognize the fact that some of the finest 
productions ever penned have been upon the sublime 
subject of human toil. There was a piece of poetry in 
my reader when I was a schoolboy that was a noble 
illustration of this elevated variety of literature. It 
went something like this : 

“ ‘ Labor is worship,’ the robin is singing ; 

‘ Labor is worship,’ the wild bee is ringing.” 

I shall never forget the sublime thrill with which I 
used to repeat it to myself lying in the hammock sum- 
mer afternoons. I wish I could remember the jest of 
it. I would have it printed and pasted where Heartley 
could not help seeing it. 

The laboring man and woman appear in song and 
story. They have been the subject of the most burn- 
ing eloquence that has ever thrilled through legislative 
halls. Cathedral aisles have echoed to heart-touching 
eulogies of their noble career. The tender words and 
tones in which their lives have been presented to sym- 
pathetic audiences have brought tears to many a lovely 
and compassionate eye. Who ever took the trouble 
to play minor chords upon the sensitive strings of the 
human heart for the sake of the rich man ? What liquid 
eye of beauty ever shed the warm tear of compassion 
over the rich man — unless the eye might have been 
affected by a cast toward future testamentary bequests. 

4 ‘ The short and simple annals of the poor ’ ’ have 
sw T ayed the hearts of poets ever since the new-born in- 


88 


LIGHT ON THE DEEP 


fant of the Hebrew slave in its slender cradle floated 
precariously with the rise and fall of the waves. What 
poet since the first rhythmic foot was measured and the 
first rhyme revealed itself to the ear of the pioneer ver- 
sifier has ever swept his tuneful harpstrings in com- 
memoration of the long and complicated history of the 
Kings of Wall Street ? 

The leaden soul of Heartley never takes all this into 
consideration. He is always worrying people about 
such sordid topics as the condition of the sewing women 
in sweating shops. He talks about the small amount 
of money they make and their little children at home 
crying for bread. 

He says nothing about the ennobling effect of work 
upon the character. He quite loses sight of the thrill 
of pride which electrifies the souls of these seamstresses 
as they reflect upon the honorable usefulness and 
dignity of their labor. It is necessary, for considera- 
tions of comfort, if nothing else, that the public should 
be clothed. What true womanly heart does not glow 
with pleasing ardor at the thought of being permitted to 
assist in the accomplishment of this beneficent result ? 

If Heartley would only spend a part of his time in 
observing life from a higher point of view things would 
seem to him very different. 

If Heartley will persist in his groveling course he 
might at least be reasonable enough to reflect how 
thoroughly these laboring people have the situation in 
their own hands. The great Economic Thinker to 
whom we are indebted for a large part of this wonder- 
ful system by which the most important nations of the 
world have waxed successful and happy, tells us ex- 
actly how to proceed : 


LIGHT ON THE DEEP 


89 


“ The way to raise the price of any commodity is to 
withdraw that part of it which is more than enough to 
supply the effectual demand.” 

“ Any commodity ” applies to labor just as much as 
to cotton cloth or potatoes. If people who have labor 
to sell are not satisfied with the market price of it all 
they have to do is to withdraw a certain part of it, 
“ that part of it which is more than enough to supply 
the effectual demand.” Could anything be more 
simple than that ? They have merely to stay away 
from the market and wages will rise. 

Mr. Waters wants to know what would become of 
the people who have labor to sell if they stayed away 
from the market waiting for the rise. How should I 
know ? How should anybody know ? What has po- 
litical economy to do with that ? 

I fear that Mr. Waters is growing unduly prying. 
It is not the business of economics to go into details. 
It shows people what to do. If they are awkward 
enough to bum their fingers in doing it, who is to 
blame ? 

Another thing that bothers Heartley is the circum- 
stance that there are three hundred and sixty thousand 
little children somewhere who do not go to school, and 
are not taught anything good at home, and are grow- 
ing up in ignorance. He says it is because their parents 
are too ignorant to teach them anything they ought to 
know, and too poor to keep them fit to go anywhere 
except in their own dirty alleys, and there are not 
schools enough to accommodate them even if they 
were able to go, and he thinks somebody ought to do 
something. Advocates national schools, and wants 


90 


LIGHT ON THE DEEP 


people to spend their money on clothing and books and 
teachers and all that. 

I never could see what there is in that to get up 
such an excitement over. When I was young I would 
very much rather have been three hundred and sixty 
thousand boys who did n’t go to school than one who 
did. Think of a three-hundred-and-sixty-thousand- 
boy power of having fun, and no school to go to. 
Could you imagine anything more hilarious ? 

The reason Heartley gives for his objection to this 
state of affairs is that in a few years the boys who are 
now staying out of school and making hoodlums of 
themselves will be among the voters of the land. 

If Heartley had any patriotism he would revel in 
that reflection. The true glory of our great nation 
consists in the fact that it can make a proud and happy 
American voter out of nothing. Can there be any- 
thing grander than a free, American voter who can- 
not be degraded from his high condition by any adven- 
titious circumstance of origin or education ? 

When I meet a little street gamin disporting joyously 
in the air, unhampered by the tyranny of domestic 
discipline, untrammeled by the despotism of the multi- 
plication table, unshackled by the conventional regula- 
tions of the schoolroom, oblivious of the laws of pop- 
ulation and rent, as set forth by Malthus and Ricardo, 
I instinctively take off my hat. 

He may not yield his proud soul a willing slave to 
the alphabet. He may not limit his expansive nature 
by the cramping formalities of grammatical rules. He 
may not bend his lofty mind to the trivial convention- 
alities of Noah Webster. He may not blur his eagle 


LIGHT ON THE DEEP 


9i 


eye in descrying nice distinctions between the Consti- 
tution of the United States and the constitution of an 
ostrich. 

He will do infinitely more than all these. He will 
rise to the highest possibilities of manhood, and become 
that grandest of all human developments, — a free and 
independent American voter. Moreover, he will add 
to the bargain counter vote, a very important element 
in close elections where paramount issues are confus- 
ingly mixed. 

Heartley has my sincere sympathy. I pity any man 
who has spent all the years of his life in this glorious 
country and has never felt his soul thrill in the pres- 
ence of the embryonic American voter, regardless of 
narrow scholastic prejudices. 

“ My father says that the more responsibility the 
people have the more carefully they ought to be edu- 
cated to meet that responsibility,” said Mr. Waters. 

I would not for anything imaginable impart to my 
friend my conviction that his father is an old fogy in 
his political views, so I assured him of my belief that 
his father was a very charming gentleman and an up- 
right and wise ruler, expressing the hope of some day 
enjoying the honor of meeting him. I like to see a 
young man show filial affection and respect. 


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XII 

Orchids 

3 f I had Mr. Waters to myself I should have much 
more brilliant success in developing him politically. 
It is the confusion of ideas occasioned by the unreason- 
able theories of ignorant people that causes him so 
much bewilderment. For example, he finds it difficult 
to comprehend the excellences of our superior system 
of taxation. Yet how simple and easy the whole sub- 
ject would be were it not for the seeming impossibility 
of educating our own people up to any intelligent 
standard of comparison. 

Some people are very much troubled over the light 
taxation of the rich and the heavy taxation of the poor. 
Even some of our most distinguished public men take a 
turn at the uproar occasionally when more important 
subjects fail. To be sure, we are always at liberty to 
give them the benefit of the doubt as to motives. We 
can say they are only trying to capture votes, of which 
the alleged victims of the tax arrangement have a large 
supply. The others have no such excuse. It is pure 
lack of reason on the part of the economists and a selfish 
ignorance in the laboring people. 

It is only reasonable and j ust that poor people should 
pay the bulk of the taxation. Is not this the poor man’s 


LIGHT ON THE DEEP 


93 


paradise ? If he is so ungrateful as not to be willing to 
support it he does not deserve to have a paradise. 
Consider the luxury which surrounds the laboring poor 
in this great nation. In no other country could he find 
such comfort. In no other country could he find a 
living at all. It is his duty, and, if he has a properly 
constructed mind, his pleasure, to sustain the country 
which furnishes him with a paradise. 

Why should a rich man be equally bound to con- 
tribute to the support of the Government ? He has no 
craving for a paradise created for his special delight. 
He is willing to live in an ordinary world. He does 
not expect to be coddled up and protected from the 
realities of life. He is not unreasonable and hard to 
please. He does not demand special favors. He takes 
things as they are and never complains. Nobody hears 
him clamoring about taxation. He supports his trials 
in heroic silence. 

He can live anywhere. Monarchies are good enough 
for him. He does mot disdain invitations to dance and 
dine with aristocracy. Royalty wins his money at 
cards. He does not object. 

There is no end of places where the rich man can get 
along. He is under no special obligation to take care 
of the Government because it supports him — he can 
support himself. The family that owns a million and 
a-half of real estate in one of our cities, on which no 
taxes are paid, amply compensates the State for that 
privilege by conferring upon it the distinction of its 
presence and the noble example of fortitude displayed 
in cheerfully and uncomplainingly enduring the calam- 
ities of wealth. 


94 


LIGHT ON THE DEEP 


To be sure, a rich man may give any amount of 
money to elect a particular candidate whose adminis- 
tration will be a help to him, but that is a personal 
matter. He need n’t do it unless he chooses. It is the 
fundamental principle of this great and glorious Gov- 
ernment that the people who are especially benefited 
by our system should be the ones to support it. 

Suppose I were a poor man. Not that I pretend to 
be a rich one. I only wish I had some foundation on 
which to erect so magnificent an assumption. I always 
longed for an opportunity of showing how heroically I 
could support embarrassing responsibilities. I am only 
medium as regards wealth. Yet, even in my case, there 
is a noticeable difference. I spend about one-quarter 
of the year under the care of this Government. In 
winter I go to Paris or take a yachting tour on a south- 
ern sea. In summer I cruise around in the Baltic and 
stop off and take a run through Russia for a few weeks, 
and sometimes ramble through Norway and Sweden 
when I am tired of the water. I am fond of water when 
it is not in my stocks or my drinking goblet. 

I am entirely out of the country a large part of every 
year. Why should I be called upon to pay the Gov- 
ernment for looking after me when I know very well 
that it will have no occasion to do so ? To be sure, if 
I should get into some infernal row with a foreign 
country that spoke an unknown tongue Yankee Doodle 
might come dashing over on his eccentric pony, waving 
the Red, White and Blue, and whistling “Hail Colum- 
bia ’ ’ to keep up his own courage and dampen that of 
the enemy; but I don’t intend to get into that kind of a 
complication . If I should be j ugged by my philological 
cousins it would necessarily signify that I was in the 


LIGHT ON THE DEEP 


95 


wrong and the interests of society imperatively de- 
manded my incarceration. It ’s only hoodlums who go 
abroad and have to be protected by the Star-Spangled 
Banner, and they are not worth it. Respectable people 
can take care of themselves in foreign countries. If 
they have a political pull, which is the most import- 
ant point of respectability, the Consul will look after 
them. 

You perceive how very appropriate it is that the Gov- 
ernment should be supported mainly by contributions 
from those people who stay within its limits and de- 
mand its constant care. 

You can never make those tyros in politics appreciate 
the true situation, evident as it must be to all people 
who are capable of thinking with clearness. They are 
hopelessly blinded to all justice. They have the hardi- 
hood to claim that a man who builds a million-dollar 
residence ought to pay taxes in proportion to those paid 
by the man who owns a three-hundred-dollar house, even 
though the owner of the palatial mansion may not see 
it once a year, while the owner of the small dwelling 
lives constantly in his and must be continually pro- 
tected by the State Government, the expenses of which 
he is expected to pay. 

What encouragement has a man to be enterprising 
enough to build a million-dollar house if he is to have 
no privileges ? How is this country ever to achieve its 
most glorious ambition and head the roll of its heroes 
with the name of a billionaire if the tender hopes, the 
bashfully budding aspirations, of the rich man are to be 
forever frozen by the frosts of discouragement and hope- 
lessly crushed in their coy unfoldings by the iron foot 
of oppression ? Even that hitherto respected and dig- 


9 6 


LIGHT ON THE DEEP 


nified body, the Supreme Court, has shown indications, 
though, happily, only in a minority opinion, of a desire 
to join in the reckless effort to trample into the dust 
the pure and lofty ambitions which should be most 
tenderly cherished. 

A man whom the deluded public has for some time 
regarded as learned in financial lore said : 

‘ ‘ A system of national taxes which rests the whole 
burden of taxation on consumption and not one cent on 
property or income is intrinsically unjust. * * * As 
wealth accumulates this injustice in the fundamental 
basis of our system will be felt and forced upon the 
attention of Congress. ’ ’ 

I am sorry to say that occasionally a misguided Con- 
gress shows leanings toward this shortsighted view. 
There is occasionally a Congress of plebeians, elected by 
the baser element, incapable of appreciating the golden 
flowering of modern civilization. Such a Congress fails 
to realize the fact that our moneyed men are the orchids 
in the garden of humanity. The orchid is a delicate 
exotic, and needs encouragement in order to develop 
to its full perfection. Should the cold wind of taxation 
blow upon the sensitive orchid of the financial garden 
it would shrink and wither away. It w 7 ould feel that 
it was cruelly discriminated against, and w^ould invol- 
untarily withdraw itself from a world that was not 
worthy of it. Where then would be that glory of de- 
velopment toward which the efflorescent spirit of mod- 
ern progress is constantly striving — the billionaire 
orchid ? As with sinking heart I wonder where, from 
the depths of my truly American soul goes forth a peti- 
tion that there may always be found in the legal mind 
of this nation sufficient patriotism to stand like an im- 


LIGHT ON THE DEEP 


97 


pregnable wall of granite against all such base, inglo- 
rious legislation as that indicated by this ill-advised 
utterance of a man who has posed as a financier before 
a blind and misguided public. 

“ How can anybody help it if Congress should take 
the same view that the financier takes ? ” inquires Mr. 
Waters. 

“ The legislation may be found unconstitutional.” 

” If a great number of people wanted it so could not 
the Constitution be amended so as to let them have it ? ” 

It naturally took me some moments to recover from 
the shock which these revolutionary words produced 
upon me. When I was able to speak I said : 

“ Amend the Constitution ? Would you presume to 
amend the multiplication table or the law of gravita- 
tion ? Would you be sacrilegious enough to amend the 
ten commandments or the sermon on the mount ? 
People used to say, ‘ As fixed as the laws of the Medes 
and Persians.’ What civilized soul cares a rush now for 
the Medes and Persians, except for railway purposes ? 
The Constitution of the United States is the only abso- 
lutely infallible and unshakable power of the world. 
Man was made for the Constitution, — not the Constitu- 
tion for man. The Constitution may, and often does, 
amend the human race. As for amending the Constitu- 
tion, — perish the thought ! 

“ The Constitution may be readily ignored when it is 
necessary in the interests of international housekeep- 
ing. It is promptly set aside when it becomes neces- 
sary to grab a banana patch to make up for generous 
donations of mining property, but it is not necessary to 
amend it when it militates against advanced methods 
of international policy and would interpose a barrier to 


98 


LIGHT ON THE DEEP 


the removal of obstacles to the comfort and security of 
institutions established ‘by the Grace of God.’ 
Amending it is altogether a different proposition, origi- 
nating in anarchy. 

“The malicious intent of such suggestions is shown 
by the preamble of a resolution which was introduced 
for no other purpose than the discouragement of coy 
and bashful enterprise. It is directed 4 to the end 
that the farming, industrial, and poorer classes of the 
country may be permitted to bear a smaller share of 
the burdens of taxation and that capital, rather than 
consumption, shall bear a larger portion of such burden.’ 

4 4 Why should the poorer classes be relieved of such 
burden ? Are they so few as to need encouragement ? 
Are they in danger of extinction ? Not at all. They 
are always with us. They encumber the earth. They 
breed paupers. They go on strikes. They run mad 
and shoot their families and themselves, or have to be 
confined in insane asylums and supported at the ex- 
pense of the public. 

44 We are not overwhelmed with a surplus of wealthy 
people. In all this great country of from seventy to 
eighty millions of people only twenty-five thousand 
own half the wealth of the nation. Shall this devoted 
little band, already staggering under the weight of the 
burden which encumbers it, be subjected to still further 
discouragement by a handicap of taxation ? What 
patriotic Greek would have conceived the scheme of 
throwing bombs into the ranks of the heroes who 
guarded the pass of Thermopylae ? 

“ In the natural order of events, this noble liltle band 
will soon decrease. It is essential to the progress of 
humanity that it should be so. It is a necessary step 


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99 


in the evolution of the billionaire, to whose app^rance 
all pious Americans are looking forward as devout 
Rabbis once looked for their Divinity. Should the 
present wise and beneficent system of taxation be so 
modified as to curtail the rights of respectable people 
with handsome incomes it would take much longer to 
evolve that culminating glory for which the soul of the 
great American imperialism pants. 

‘ ‘ The protection of the rich is growing to be a serious 
problem in this country. The father of political econ- 
omy held that the object of all that complicated machin- 
ery involved in the ‘ Dismal Science ’ is to protect the 
rich from the poor, and if a father does not know his 
own child Launcelot Gobbo’s lack of confidence in the 
paternal relation would seem to have received additional 
confirmation.” 

Mr. Waters was thoughtful for a time, and then said 
in a hopeful tone : 

“ When your Congress opens I hope a great many 
things wfill be clearly explained that seem dark to me 
now. ’ * 

‘‘They certainly will. You will have opportunity 
then to imbibe wisdom from the fountain-head. Our 
great legislators are almost as distinguished for clear* 
ness of diction and cogency of logic as for amiability 
and courtesy. No one ever has difficulty with any 
question after it has been explained by our Congress- 
men in legislative halls assembled. It is as clear as the 
pellucid fluid with which temperate Washingtonians 
quench their thirst. ’ ’ 


LofC. 


IOO 


LIGHT ON THE DEEP 


» 


XIII 

Statesmanship 

3 was glad that Mr. Grandcock was speaking on the 
Humanity Bill when my friend first visited our 
National Congress. He is one of our most eloquent 
orators, He is strong on the Humanity Bill. He orig- 
inated it. He made a strong and brilliant argument in 
favor of the bill, and closed thus : 

“ Over a century ago the great Bell of Liberty rang 
out from Independence Hall its prophetically triumph- 
ant peal of Freedom, and all the world stood still to 
listen as its music circled the universe with joy. Its 
echoes ha ye swept through the vagues of time and 
space since that glorious day and awakened responsive 
notes in every heart that has throbbed for Liberty. 
From our own proud land through all the varying 
grades of civilization down to the lowest nation where 
even one heart has, in its noblest height of aspiration, 
caught for a single instant the faintest dream of some- 
thing better than it has yet known, that heroic strain 
has been heard. Its beautiful notes have echoed across 
distant islands of the sea, mingled with the sound of 
the guns which have lulled the natives to eternal sleep. 


LIGHT ON THE DEEP 


IOI 


“Hark ! What do I hear? My friends — my brothers — 
I do not address you now as political colleagues, — as 
members of a legislative body, — I appeal to you as 
men, — as brothers, — as component parts of that great 
world-fraternity in which the universal heart of hu- 
manity beats, — I implore you to bend your ear and 
listen with me. Do you hear the sorrowful note that 
mingles with the vibrant peal of joy, deadening all its 
music and turning it to a heart-breaking requiem ? 
The melancholy dirge grows deeper, sadder, as we 
listen, and in its flood of mournful sound the chimes of 
Liberty are drowning forever ! 

“ My fellowmen, with hearts beating in sympathy 
with the joys and woes of all mankind, — patriots, with 
souls aglow with love for your native land and with 
pride in her noble career, do you know what sound it 
is that is crushing out the music of our glorious Song 
of the Free ? I will tell you, my brothers. It is the cry 
of little children, weeping for bread, — the moan of 
loving mothers, wrung from their tender hearts by the 
sufferings of their helpless little ones, — the sob of 
strong men, who would go to death with smiling faces, 
but who fall prostrate before the sufferings of their 
loved ones. 

4 4 My friends, would you hush those mournful cries ? 
Would you restore to the grand symphony of human 
progress the noble paean of American Liberty ? There 
is but one way in which you can achieve this sublime 
end and cover your names with ineffable glory, and 
that is by voting for this measure, which I leave with 
you in serene hope and cheerful expectation.” 

Mr. Waters was very thoughtful for a time as we 
walked homeward. He always insists upon walking. 


102 


LIGHT ON THE DEEP 


Never having had much of an opportunity before he 
came to this country, he feels a delight in the unaccus- 
tomed exercise, and I lay aside my American scruples 
to gratify him and enjoy his pleasure. It is a waste of 
time to walk ; you can get there so much sooner in 
some other way. 

“ What do you do when you get there ? ” Mr. Waters 
sometimes asks me. 

As if that had anything to do with it. If you are 
going to do nothing when you get there you should 
make all speed. Time is the most valuable of posses- 
sions and it is wicked to waste it in slow traveling. 
My youthful friend has not been here long enough as 
yet to comprehend this. 

“I am so glad that Congress knows now how people 
are suffering. It seems strange, though, that they did 
not know it until that Member told them.” 

“That’s an old story. I can’t remember a time 
when there was not somebody getting up a furore now 
and then about the sufferings of the poor. I think 
poor people were first created to serve as a whetstone 
for orators to sharpen their eloquence upon.’’ 

“ Why don’t they do something, then ? ” 

“ It would not be in accordance with their methods. 
After awhile you will be more experienced in the char- 
acter and regulations of legislative bodies. ’ ’ 

“They can not help doing something, now that Mr. 
Grandcock has talked so earnestly to them. What a 
good man he must be. A man like that should be very 
happy in the usefulness of his life. They must pass 
the bill, now.” 

“He is certainly a good man, and understands his 
business. Did you observe that he and a number of 


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103 


his friends went out just before the bill came to vote ? 
There were not enough Members left to vote on any- 
thing.” 

“ Why did he do that? ” 

‘ ‘ He is not ready yet to have it come up. ’ ’ 

“ How can that be when he is so anxious to have it 
passed and help the people out of trouble ? ’ ’ 

44 It might pass if it were voted on now.” 

“ That is what he wants.” 

“No ; it is only what he says he wants. That is 
very different.” 

“ Why does n’t a man want his own bill to pass ? ” 

4 ‘ In this case it is because he has made a deal with 
another Member to defeat it in consideration of that 
Member’s helping him with a bill that he really does 
want to get through.” 

“ Why should he talk in favor of it if he doesn’t 
want it to pass ? ” 

“ His speech will be printed and he will send copies 
of it all through his district. They will shower down 
like an equinoctial rain. There are many factories in 
that district, and the workmen have been out of em- 
ployment for a long time and have suffered very greatly. 
They voted for him almost solidly at the last election. 
They are getting discouraged now and somewhat reck- 
less. They are likely to go for the man who promises 
to help them. The speech will circulate among them 
and win thousands of votes that have been drifting an- 
other way, and make the Congressman solid again.” 

4 4 Why does he not let it come to vote and pass it and 
win all the more votes, besides doing good to the peo- 


104 


LIGHT ON THE DEEP 


“ Because he can’t afford it. He can not get the 
nomination unless he succeeds in passing a certain other 
bill which will come up later in the session, and if he 
should not get the nomination what good would the 
votes do him ? He is too fine a statesman to sow votes 
for other men to reap. ’ ’ 

“ Please tell me what the other bill has to do with 
this one. I am so anxious to learn about the legisla- 
tion of your great nation. I shall need it so much 
when I go home.” 

“ Another leading Congressman is opposing the Hu- 
manity Bill, because it is against his interests. It 
would reduce his profits a thousand a year, and he has 
only five millions now. He is enthused with a noble 
ambition to become wealthy and be promoted to the 
Senate. He will not vote for the other bill nor let his 
followers vote for it unless the Humanity Bill is allowed 
to fail. So the framer and chief talker of the Human- 
ity Bill has arranged with his friends to leave the hall 
when the time comes for putting the question, so that 
it may not be voted on until enough of its friends have 
been converted to defeat it. Then it will come up and 
be lost, with Mr. Grandcock voting for it and seeming 
to work for it all the time. He is a profound states- 
man and the ablest organizer in the whole Congress. 
We are fortunate to have so brilliant a man in our na- 
tional councils.” 

“ What is the bill that he is so anxious to have go 
through ? ’ ’ 

“ It is for the improvement of the Jamboo River.” 

“ Where is that ? ” 

“ In Bonanza County, where Mr. Grandcock lives.” 

“ Is it a great river ? ” 


LIGHT ON THE DEEP 


105 


“ Magnificent ! The bed of it is said to be damp two 
months in every year. They say a man once drowned 
himself in it. It was after a spring freshet of unex- 
ampled violence. It was the wettest time ever known 
in this country, except a presidential duck hunt. He 
was a most persistent suicide. Some say he drowned 
himself ; others say he stood on his head in the river 
until he starved to death. I don’t know how it was 
myself. ’ ’ 

“What has the river to do with Mr. Grandcock’s 
nomination ? ” 

“ The man who blows the Congressional nomination 
where he listeth wants the River Bill to pass because it 
carries an appropriation in which he is interested. If 
the bill goes he will waft the nomination in Mr. Grand- 
cock’s direction. He is sure of nomination and enough 
votes to elect him if the River Bill goes, while if the 
Humanity Bill should be carried and the River Bill 
lost he will fail of nomination, and, however willing 
the votes might be, they would do him no good. After 
he is nominated he will go about through the district 
and tell the voters how hard he labored to save the 
Humanity Bill, and by w T hat a slender thread he failed, 
and how absolutely sure he is of triumphantly carrying 
a similar bill which he will introduce next session. The 
few votes he will lose will scarcely be noticed in the 
grand result.” 

“Will he pass the bill next time ? ” 

“ O, that depends. He will, of course, be under 
obligation to his associates who have helped him, and 
it may be necessary that he should sacrifice himself to 
their interests. An honorable statesman is never neg- 
ligent in regard to his political debts. If he should 


io6 


LIGHT ON THE DEEP 


not, he will strike some other way of keeping himself 
solid. Mr. Grandcock is a fine man. I hope to intro- 
duce you to him. You will get more useful informa- 
tion from him than from any other man in town, and 
a study of his methods will be of great assistance to 
you in organizing your own Congress, should you 
develop into a great republic some day and come into 
possession of that crowning beatitude, as I most sin- 
cerely hope you will.” 

‘ ‘ I am really afraid that some of your methods, fine 
as they are — or, rather, because they are so fine — can 
not be adapted to my people. We are not civilized, 
you know. We are primitive and ignorant, and I fear 
my people have an inveterate habit of saying what they 
mean. They do not know any better.” 

“ They will improve. They can not help it if you 
labor as earnestly in imparting instruction as you have 
in gaining it.” 

“ Perhaps so. I can not understand how a country 
so large as yours, and with so many mines and factories 
and resources of wealth generally, should have become 
so poor.” 

‘‘Poor! My dear friend, don’t you know that our 
country is the richest in the world ? Where else could 
such colossal fortunes be found? Don’t you know that 
one of our most beneficent trusts has accumulated five 
hundred million dollars by sacrificing itself to serve the 
people cheaply ? Just imagine how rich it might have 
become had it been in it for money instead of charity ! 
Another benevolent institution takes in two hundred 
millions every year by philanthropic methods. Think, 
too, how rapidly these noble influences for good are 
multiplying. Would this be possible were we not a 


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107 


rich, as well as a benevolent people ? Then reflect 
upon the generosity of our political methods. Did not 
we pay more millions than the Syndicate will permit 
us to weary ourselves by estimating for a perennial 
war, merely from a desire to assist a neighbor who 
had fallen into difficulties in regard to somebody else’s 
diamonds ? Could we have done all these praiseworthy 
things had we been poverty-stricken ? What could 
have suggested to you the very amazing supposition 
that our country is poor ? ’ ’ 

“ I gathered from what Mr. Grandcock said, that it 
might be so. ’ ’ 

“You must not look to the class where a statesman 
goes for votes to find out the condition of the country. 
You must look aloft to the higher grades of society, to 
the people who own the nation, to learn the true state 
of affairs. When you do you will perceive that we 
really are all that we proudly claim to be, the richest 
nation on earth.” 

He was silent for a time, walking carefully in an 
effort to avoid the pitfalls by means of which the wise 
and beneficent supervisors of our Capital City endeavor 
to develop our heroic characteristics. As I rescued him 
from one into which he had unhappily plunged he asked 
why the streets were so dark. 

“ It is supposed that the light of genius concentrated 
in our seat of legislation is sufficient to illuminate our 
pathway with very little assistance from gas or electric- 
ity. Occasionally it is so nearly exhausted by political 
and moral demands that there is not quite enough left 
adequately to supply physical necessities.” 

He stumbled on for a while and then began : 

“ It is very sad ” 


io8 


LIGHT ON THE DEEP 


“ What is?” I asked, when he had recovered from 
a diversion effected by some violent irregularities. 

“ The reflection that an insignificant gas light would 
be of greater value on a cloudy night than all the daz- 
zling genius which floods your Congressional halls with 
glory.” 


LIGHT ON THE DEEP 


109 


XIV 

A Masterly System 

3 am happy to say that Mr. Waters received light on 
some very important matters, though there was 
none with which to illumine the streets. It happened 
that we inadvertently wandered out of our course as we 
attempted to pursue our way by the light of other peo- 
ple’s genius. When we stopped to find ourselves we 
were in a narrow street in front of a dingy shanty, the 
door of which stood open, and a dim ray struggling 
through a dirty lamp showed an ambulance in the street 
and two men carrying a helpless person from the little 
dwelling, followed by a third, whom I recognized as a 
young medical man of my acquaintance. 

Mr. Waters is much interested in the careful and ex- 
tensive provision made in the Capital City for the care 
of the unfortunate, as, indeed, are all who have ever 
had the privilege of even the most limited acquaintance 
with it. I was glad for him to have this opportunity 
of observing one of its finest illustrations. The physi- 
cian explained the situation, and seemed to regard it as 
likely to exemplify the superior methods which prevail 
in all our public institutions. I called a cab and Mr. 
Waters and I followed the ambulance to a hospital. 

When we stopped before the building my friend, the 
physician, was coming down the steps with an empha- 


no 


LIGHT ON THE DEEP 


sis which seemed to indicate a slightly ruffled state of 
mind. I regret to say that my professional friend is 
not always in that amiable condition which is neces- 
sary to render a medical man an unvarying boon to 
society. I shall always be thankful for a serene and 
imperturbable temper. It not only makes people agree- 
able to their friends, but it is altogether more comfort- 
able for themselves. I cannot think of anything that 
would seriously disturb me. 

“ What is it, Doctor? ” I inquired, desiring to have 
an explanation of each step in the proceeding for the 
benefit of Mr. Waters. 

“They don’t take any but emergency cases in this 
hospital,” he said. 

The ambulance went on and our cab followed. 

“Isn’t it an emergency when a man is dying?” 
asked Mr. Waters. 

“It seems not. There are many useful things we 
may learn by studying advanced methods. If you in- 
tend to introduce our admirable system into your own 
country you must study fine distinctions with great 
care. If there could be one feature of our excellent 
institutions more commendable than another it would 
be the refinement of our distinctions and our artistic 
drawing of delicate lines. I am very much pleased that 
you should have this opportunity of observing our 
methods.” 

I really was so interested in the progress of my 
friend that I could say this with truth, foreign as it was 
to my habits to follow ambulances around the city. I 
had laboriously formed the habit of conducting Mr. 
Waters into every place where he might get valuable 
training. I had so far profited by the sacrifice that I 


LIGHT ON THE DEEP 


in 


had discovered more beauties in our wonderful institu- 
tions than I had before observed. That is always the 
way with those who really study our system. Such a 
habit is adapted to awaken the noblest sentiments of 
patriotism even in minds less delicately sensitive than 
my own. 

The doctor remained longer at the next place at which 
we stopped, and I was glad to believe that preparations 
were being made for receiving the poor old man, for I 
heard a groan from the ambulance which seemed to indi- 
cate great suffering. After a time the doctor came 
down the steps, followed by a gentleman who seemed 
to be an official of the institution. He examined the pa- 
tient with great care, and then turned to the medical man. 

“I am very sorry,” he said politely, “but we do not 
take semi-emergency cases in this hospital. One ap- 
plied here last night — a poor woman who was brought 
in, apparently dying. We should have been glad to 
accommodate her, more especially as the physician in 
attendance was once professionally connected with this 
institution, but it is against our rules to receive patients 
in such circumstances.” 

“Where did they take her?” asked my friend, 
thinking to catch an item which might be of assistance. 

“Everywhere,” returned the sympathizing gentle- 
man. “They drove about with her until she froze to 
death, and then they took her back to the place where 
they found her.” 

This was such a high testimonial to the perfect devel- 
opment of our system that the doctor was speechless 
with admiration. He climbed into the ambulance and 
proceeded to administer a restorative to the patient, who 
had evidently fainted from exhaustion. 


1 12 


LIGHT ON THE DEEP 


At the next place my friend made only a short stay, 
and as he came down the steps I regret to say that a pro- 
fane remark drifted out upon the night. The doctor is 
a good young man, but he has upon occasions been 
known to give utterance to expressions which were not 
of a strictly religious character. I should not have ob- 
jected, on my own account, to his relieving his mind in 
any way which seemed to him comfortable. I am not 
disposed to be illiberal in my views as regards the diver- 
sions of my friends. 

The reason I regretted his behavior on this occasion 
was that it might possibly produce upon the mind of 
my companion the erroneous impression that there 
could be a defect in our public institutions. The duty 
of us all is to refrain from giving expression to any 
feeling which may tend to discredit our system in the 
mind of any one, and especially one who is seriously 
engaged in studying model institutions with the pur- 
pose of introducing them for the improvement of his 
own country. I have great respect for my medical 
friend, who is honest and well-meaning, but I can not 
help thinking that he is a little indiscreet, being still 
youthful and given to over-swift conclusions and some- 
what emphatic expressions. 

“ They can not take him here without an order from 
the Grand Vizier of Hygienic Affairs, and that must be 
procured at the proper time. When anybody intends 
to fall ill he should notify the health office two weeks in 
advance.” 

“ It is an admirable regulation,” I said to Mr. Waters 
as we followed the ambulance. ‘ 1 It prevents hurry and 
disorder. ‘Order is heaven’s first law,’ and the more 
nearly we approach to strict regularity in our proceed- 


LIGHT ON THE DEEP 


IJ 3 

ings the more we resemble that blessed place, which it 
should be our highest ambition to emulate.” 

I think my companion felt the force of the argument. 
He looked solemn and appreciative. 

We went to a few more places, but they did not re-- 
ceive patients at night. 

‘‘A very good rule,” I said. “It interferes materi- 
ally with the comfort of an institution to have people, 
and especially people who are ill and require care, com- 
ing in at all hours of the night. The habit of doing so 
indicates a great lack of consideration on the part of 
those thus guilty. Careful people fall ill in the morn- 
ing, when they may be attended to without interfering 
to so great an extent with the convenience of others. 
Observe the perfect system which prevails in the public 
institutions of this great nation. You will find system- 
atic rules of great value when you establish your own 
hospitals.” 

The ambulance had been for some time driving along 
dark streets, and now it came to a halt before the little 
dwelling from which the poor man had started on his 
hopeless quest. We followed as he was carried into the 
house, anxious to see the end of the nocturnal excur- 
sion. He sighed heavity as they laid him down on the 
bed and then lay very still. The physician bent over 
him and examined him carefully. Then he stepped 
back from the bedside and said in a low tone : 

“ He is dead.” 

We went out. 

“ I am glad you have had this opportunity of study- 
ing our excellent hospital system in this practical way,” 
I said to my friend. ‘‘You will comprehend its ad- 
mirable points much better than you could by simply 


LIGHT ON THE DEEP 


1 14 

reading of them or listening to descriptions. By per- 
sonal examination you gain a better understanding of 
the perfect order and harmony of their management, 
and the care with which each is restricted to its own 
sphere and limited to its own class of cases and hours 
of admission.” 

“ The man died,” said Mr. Waters, with an unfor- 
tunate tendency he has to rivet his attention to a minor 
feature of a subject, thus excluding its more important 
phases. 

I am sorry to say that Mr. Waters is somewhat narrow 
in his views — the result of a defective education in his 
youth. I fear it will take him a long time to develop 
sufficient breadth of mind to appreciate the fact that 
the system, not the individual, is the proper object of 
public administration. 

‘‘That was his own fault. He should not have been 
a semi-emergency case. Had he honestly come out 
and developed into a whole emergency case, as a man 
of strong character would have done, he might have 
been taken in at the first place at which we applied. 
If he was not willing to take this decisive ground he 
should have sent a polite note to the Grand Vizier of 
Hygienic Affairs, stating his intentions, and applying 
for admission at some definite hour, not too late, on 
some stated day, far enough off to avoid the appearance 
of precipitation. You will find when you come to es- 
tablish public institutions of the most highly-developed 
character, that they can not be adapted to the conven- 
ience of every variety of unreasonable person who 
chooses to test their possibilities in all conceivable ways 
which perversity may suggest.” 


LIGHT ON THE DEEP 


115 


XV 

The Beneficent Tariff 

3 t was about this time that the health of my young 
friend seemed to be failing. Not that he was ill, 
but only that he did not seem to be as bright and 
cheerful as formerly. He seemed to have been 
weakened by the efforts he had made to formulate a 
lofty system of government for his country, based upon 
the highly-developed institutions of the great nation 
which he had so proudly and ambitiously made his 
political model. 

He overcame his growing inertia sufficiently to con- 
tinue his visits to Congress, which he still rightly re- 
garded as the fountain-head of political wisdom. 

“ I suppose if I ever learn anything useful it will be 
there,” he said, with an anxious interrogative in- 
flection. 

‘ ‘ Of course. The United States Congress is the con- 
centration of our national wisdom. It is the most 
highly condensed and super-refined essence of political 
sapience in the world. It offers the universe a free 
education in statesmanship. There is no selfish exclu- 
sion in its management. It is the only thoroughly 
democratic institution of learning in existence. It 
gives instruction without money and without price. It 


LIGHT ON THE DEEP 


1 16 

does not even require tickets of admission, as do the 
less able and instructive legislative bodies of other 
countries. It is a grand privilege to have a national 
institution to which every man, regardless of condition, 
can go, to have all his problems, political and ethical, 
solved to his complete satisfaction and illumination. 
It must be of the greatest assistance to you.” 

“ Y-e-e-s,” he said slowly and hesitatingly, “only — 
of course, it is my own fault — that is, I mean, my mis- 
fortune in not being fitted for the higher life that comes 
so natural and easy to you, — it seems as if I do not get 
just the kind of explanations that I need. Your Con- 
gress, I suppose, does not pretend to be a kindergarten, 
and I am too undeveloped to see everything that is so 
clear to you and your friends. 

“ The Tariff Bill seems to be the hardest thing. I 
know it must be a great blessing to the country, or you 
would not have it ; but, so far as I can see, it is like 
some terrible great monster that sets its foot down on the 
markets and the factories and all the things on which 
poor people depend for a living, and nothing can move. 
When a Congressman gets a long troop of followers 
among his fellow Members he tries to take up one of 
the great heavy feet of the terrible beast and set it down 
somewhere else, where it will crush out the life of some- 
thing that is in his way. The country has to stand 
still and starve while Congress discusses the question 
of what shall be the next victim of the ponderous foot. 

“ Of course, that is not the way, for if it were, a grand 
Republic like yours, which one of your greatest men said 
is ruled by ‘ a government of the people, by the people, 
and for the people,’ would not have it so ; but it looks 
like that to me, and I can not understand it at all. It 


LIGHT ON THE DEEP 


1 *7 

seems as if the men who are interested in some partic- 
ular kind of business go to Congress and get a tariff 
that will protect their industry. Then the men who 
make something else that people must buy or starve to 
■death, join together and have their business protected. 
When somebody fails to get his little field fenced 
around to suit him then he just goes to the other side 
and tries to throw over the Tariff Bill and get another 
one brought in. and all the time that they are quar- 
relling about what particular little field shall have the 
strongest fence around it, all the great world of work- 
ing people and business people and everybody who 
must work for a living or fail to get one, are dying, 
because business is all stopped, and nobody dares, or is 
willing, to put money into anything for fear the Tariff 
Bill will put its foot down on it and squeeze the life out 
of it. Of course, I know it is right, or it would not be 
so in a great nation like this, but I am so dull that I 
cap not understand it, and the more I try to find out 
how it is the harder it is for me.” 

‘ ‘ When you have been here longer you will know 
that the Tariff Bill is the safeguard of the nation. We 
should not awaken the admiration of the world by the 
lavish production of millionaires, were it not for the 
Tariff Bill. Upon its proper manipulation depends our 
hope of evolving the billionaire. It has intellectual 
and aesthetic uses which you might regard as still 
higher. It develops wisdom on the part of our legisla- 
tors. It affords an extended field for learned discus- 
sion, thereby tending to mental breadth and depth. By 
it is evolved a soaring eloquence which would otherwise 
be impossible of achievement. The colossal minds of our 
statesmen are formed around it as the bronze statues of 


n8 


LIGHT ON THE DEEP 


our great heroes are shaped around the mould . What if a 
few people do starve to death while the subject is being 
discussed with that deep learning and lofty eloquence 
which it both demands and creates ? Would you in- 
terrupt the golden stream that flows from the lips of 
our Chrysostoms, merely because a few insignificant 
men, women and children, who would never amount to 
anything as statesmen, are hungry? Patriotism de- 
mands a negative answer. Would you deprive this 
great nation of the glorious educational advantages, and 
the world of the impressive spectacle, of an extra ses- 
sion, merely because factories close and banks fail and 
mines shut down, and men and women tramp the streets 
in search of employment until they fall and die of ex- 
haustion, and children are thrust down into the slums 
to grow up into criminals and paupers? When you 
have a grand and glorious Republic in your own coun- 
try yon will find that the educational privileges of your 
nation must be preserved and the oratorical develop- 
ment of your statesmen must be provided for at any 
cost.” 

“Must we have a Tariff Bill?” he inquired anx- 
iously. 

“ Of course. You must have all the advantages that 
have been found necessary to the highest development 
of the greatest nation on earth.” 

‘‘Is it good for anything except to develop states- 
men ? ” he asked somewhat doubtfully. 

“ It is a transcendent boon to any nation so fortunate 
as to possess it. What do you suppose the one which 
is now strewing its blessings at large through the world 
has done for the suffering people ? ’ ’ 

“ I don’t know,” he said anxiously. 


LIGHT ON THE DEEP 119 

“ It has exempted Munjeef from duty — Munjeef, 
that most precious gift to the world — the one great 
force that is necessary to uplift humanity and restore 
peace and happiness to dejected souls. When I recall 
the multitudes who have sunk into their graves pining 
for Munjeef, the brave hearts that have fainted and 
fallen by the wayside and feebly throbbed their last in 
unsatisfied longings for Munjeef, I look through tears 
of thanksgiving and pride upon the noble assemblage 
of self-abnegating souls who have taken measures to 
fill that long-felt want and assuage the wild craving for 
Munjeef.” 

“What is Munjeef?” asked my friend, renewed 
hope flushing his face and sparkling in his eyes. 

“It is the one object for which the American soul 
panteth as the hart for the waters,” I returned, not 
feeling quite ready to pass a detailed examination on 
the subject, and hastening on to another feature of our 
beneficent Tariff Bill. 

“ There is balm in Gilead. There may have been 
doubts on that subject once. They have been scientifi- 
cally resolved, and there is not now a shade of uncertainty 
in regard to the existence of that soothing application. 
You will be glad to learn that it is to enter our ports 
free of duty just at the moment of our national history 
when it is most needed. What could have been more 
delicate and thoughtful in our public-spirited legisla- 
tors than to throw wide open the ports of our nation to 
that healing lotion when so many patriotic office- 
seekers are looking for something to assuage their 
cruel wounds ? The merciful action will be complete 
when it is crowned by a special bill to provide unlimited 
quantities of that emollient for the use of the man who 


120 


LIGHT ON THE DEEP 


has confidently expected to stand in the sacred shadows 
of the Court of St. James, but who is sent to uphold 
his country’s honor as consul to the port of Damphino- 
ware. An act of kindness always presupposes a gener- 
ous turn of mind, but it requires a high order of philan- 
thropic genius to know just when the gracious deed 
will descend upon the waiting heart as the reviving 
rain falleth on the drooping flower in midsummer.” 

“ The tariff is what makes it so easy in this country 
for poor people to get what they need, isn’t it? ” 

“ Certainly. That is its chief good, next to the de- 
velopment of statesmanship. There is that prime 
necessity of life and happiness, Myrobolan. O, my 
friend, had you been with me last year as I traveled 
through the rural districts — had you seen our farmers 
and their families falling into ruin because of the limited 
supply of Myrobolan, your heart would have bled 
with sympathy ! It is a painful thing to see a once 
strong man sinking out of life faintly murmuring 
with his last fluttering breath, ‘ Myr-o-b-o-l-a-n.’ It 
is far sadder still to hear little children whose sweet 
young voices should be attuned to the joyous carol of 
the lark on a sunny summer’s day crying in pathetic 
accents, ‘ Myrobolan ! ’ The average population might 
get along without sugar. Indeed, I have heard deni- 
zens of the outskirts of civilization express a decided 
preference for taking their coffee ‘ clar. ’ In what re- 
mote and abnormal region can existence be supported 
and the sweet amenities of domestic and social life 
maintained without a proper supply of Myrobolan ? ’ ’ 

Mr. Waters drew a sigh of relief. 

“ I knew that the Tariff Bill was good or you would 
not have it, and I am glad that you have explained to 


LIGHT ON THE DEEP 


121 


me how greatly it has benefited your nation. You 
know the chief object with me is to adapt the fine in- 
stitutions of your great nation to the wants of my own 
untrained people, and I fear that they have no idea of 
their great need of these valuable things with strange 
names.” 

M You must create the need by educating them up 
to it. That is the noblest work of man. The Deity 
created man as the highest manifestation of His power ; 
man rises nearest Him by creating the lofty human de- 
sires by which the character of his race is developed. 
One of the greatest thinkers of the age has said : ‘ Never 
give the people what they want ; give them what they 
ought to want and don’t.’ In this way you will elevate 
your people to such a point that they will have a crav- 
ing as keen as our own for all the blessings included in 
the Tariff Bill. 

“ There is no phase of life which is not refined and 
elevated by this beneficent influence. It rises into the 
lofty realm of aesthetics, as shown in the clause concern- 
ing Art Educational Stops. If there is anything for 
which the soul of America suffers a supremely intense 
longing it is an art stop. You see the necessity for 
such an appliance illustrated in the statues which adorn 
our public places. Could such a stop have been ap- 
plied in time to prevent creations of that nature, what 
untold misery might have been averted ! The swollen- 
headed infants which fill maternal hearts with agoniz- 
ing waves of sympathy might have been arrested in 
embryo. The art stop, introduced in an earlier period 
of our national history, might have saved the lives of 
brave cavalrymen, who have succumbed to the shock 
consequent upon viewing the sculptor’s idea of the 


122 


LIGHT ON THE DEEP 


horsemanship of some favorite commander. The Father 
of His Country, with breast heroically and perilously 
bared to the inclemency of this uncertain climate, and 
the rest of him enveloped in a classic drapery upon 
which he glares with the painful confusion and dismay 
of an unaccustomed mind, might have been protected 
from reverses of fortune compared with which the Revo- 
lution was child’s play. When I think of all the 
trouble that might have been avoided had this stop 
been sooner applied, I am filled with surprise that it has 
been so long delayed. I can account for it only upon 
the theory that even the wisest of men can not remem- 
ber everything. 

“ The Tariff Bill is no less watchful of the moral de- 
velopment of humanity than of its physical and aesthetic 
requirements. A reference to the newspapers will indi- 
cate to you that the widespread profanity of this coun- 
try is chiefly due to the collar button. We are rapidly 
becoming a nation of swearers, impelled thereto by the 
nefarious button. Various devices have been resorted 
to by Christian leaders to overcome these deteriorating 
influences. It is reserved for our devout legislators 
to discover a method whereby the heart of man will 
remain unruffled and his lips preserve the purity of the 
rosebud mouth of childhood. They have hedged the 
depraved button round about with difficulties insuper- 
able. Men will soon cease to exhaust themselves in 
efforts to obtain that source of evil. They will seek 
innocent methods of uniting the component parts of 
their apparel into one harmonious whole. They will 
tie them together with the innocuous twine, or, revert- 
ing to the customs of guileless youth spent amid rural 
surroundings, they will hie them to the primeval forest 


LIGHT ON THE DEEP 


123 


and secure harmless withes from the noble hickory tree 
wherewith to maintain the integrity alike of raiment 
and conscience. Then will their hearts be free from 
wrath, their lips from guileful speech, and the Mil- 
lennium will descend upon us with ineffable glory.” 

“You can have a new Tariff Bill whenever you want 
it, can’t you ? ” 

‘ ‘ We can afford a fresh one nearly every year. How- 
ever great the demand, the supply never fails. Congress 
will present us with a revised and improved Tariff Bill 
whenever it becomes necessary to pay off campaign 
debts or to secure political support for the future.” 


124 


LIGHT ON THE DEEP 


XVI 

Sunset 

'JETe became absorbed in contemplation of the un- 
m) speakable blessing enjoyed by the great nation, 
and did not speak again until we were passing a comer 
where a statue was placed. 

“ Who is that ? ” he asked. 

“ You must not look at that disgraceful thing.” 

“ Why ? ” he asked in surprise. “ Who is it ? ” 

‘ ‘ He was a base impostor who once deceived the 
world into believing that he was a great man. We 
should probably never have known the truth about him 
had it not been for the noble exertions of The Most 
High and Mighty Association of Giltwash and Gam- 
mon, whose Grand Committee for the Microscopic Ex- 
amination of Escutcheons discovered a bar sinister 
somewhere in his vicinity and revealed the painful fact 
that some of his descendants could not be admitted to 
the Sacred Circle of the Elect, whose credentials from 
the High Court of Ancestry were of unimpeachable 
integrity. ’ ’ 

‘ ‘ What did he do before he — tried to become an 
Ancestor ? ’ ’ 

‘ ‘ He fooled away a good deal of time on science and 
philosophy and such trivialities. He did not assume 


LIGHT ON THE DEEP 


125 


the style that would fit him for the high position which 
he sought to maintain with reference to the present 
generation. He wore coarse clothes and paid his debts, 
and spent his nights in study, with the design of im- 
proving his mind, like the common plebeian that he was. 
The minds of people in good society are perfect by na- 
ture ; they do not require any improvement. He did 
not even go to church, as a fashionable Christian does. 
He had a habit of making remarks that had no appli- 
cation to any of the world’s higher needs, such as : 

‘ PIoav deep, while sluggards sleep, 

And you will have corn to sell and keep.’ 

Who wants corn to keep ? The only grain that is 
worth anything is the kind that is sold in the 
Exchange, and nobody cares to keep that. The whole 
object is to sell it, and it is not of the variety that re- 
quires plowing, either deep or shallow.” 

4 4 For what is it used ? ’ ’ 

‘‘For the entertainment of the farmer. There 
would be no diversion in his occupation if he could not 
watch his crops go up and down in obedience to the 
manipulators of the exchange. That is the sole object 
for which he sustains the burden and the heat of the 
day. There would be no fun in farming, but for the 
wheat for which the land was never plowed, and which 
was never sown nor harvested nor gathered into 
garners. Good men in the exchange are willing to 
work hard all day, knock holes in each other’s anato- 
mies, shout themselves hoarse and run the risk of 
bronchial affections and lung diseases, only that the 
farmers may have the recreation of seeing their wheat 
perform all manner of unexpected and amusing evolu- 


126 


LIGHT ON THE DEEP 


tions. This ignorant man who talked so wildly about 
plowing knew nothing of modern improvements. We 
are going to take this statue down and throw it into 
the river, and put in its place a monument to a great 
patriot, who gave up all his money to save the nation 
when it would have been a ruined bankrupt but for 
him.” 

‘ ‘ Where is he now ? ’ ’ 

“He is dead. Otherwise why should we bother 
about a monument for him ? ’ * 

‘ ‘ How the country must have loved him while he 
lived.” 

“ It did. He was allowed the privilege of carrying 
out his designs to the fullest extent possible. He en- 
joyed the honorable distinction of being put into a 
debtor’s prison and of ending his life in destitution. 
One fine thing about our governments on land is that 
they never interfere with the completeness of a man’s 
sacrifice for his country. If he shows the spirit of a 
martyr, they allow him to cultivate it to its highest 
degree, that he may reap the greatest reward for his 
self-abnegation.” 

“ What was this man’s reward ? ” 

“ He is to be honored with a noble production of the 
sculptor’s art, celebrating in classic dignity his virtues 
and his country’s gratitude.” 

“What is the good of putting a monument to the 
memory of a man after letting him starve to death ? ” 

‘ 4 It manifests our appreciation of his willingness to 
immolate himself on the altar of his country. If he did 
not do it how could we know that he was willing ? It 
is a consolation to him to learn that we have not forgotten 


LIGHT ON THE DEEP 


127 


him. It must be the greatest possible satisfaction to a dis- 
embodied spirit whose earthly existence was associated 
with a Roman nose, to look down upon a pug-nosed 
statue, labeled with his name spelled wrong, bearing 
an inscription with dates which can not be verified by 
his personal history, and a word misspelled, and a false 
quotation from the poets. When he ascertains that the 
masterpiece of art cost a hundred thousand dollars he 
never stops to wonder how much longer that money 
would have kept him in good society on earth.” 

“ I suppose it is very comforting to him, but — we do 
not build monuments in our country, and I don’t know 
how ghosts would feel about them if we did.” 

‘‘You will introduce many improvements when you 
return.” 

Soon after that Mr. Waters ceased to walk about very 
much. He seemed tired, and would lie all day by his 
window, where he could catch the sparkle of the river 
in the distance, radiant with the gold and crimson and 
green and pink and purple bars of sunset. 

“ Perhaps I could have learned to understand the 
good and wonderful things in your great nation,” he 
said, with a shade of regret in his voice, as if he were 
speaking of something from which he had gone far, far 
away, “ if my strength had only been sufficient.” 

“ Of course you could, and you will,” I said encour- 
agingly. 

I had grown apprehensive about him, but I would 
not let him know. 

‘‘I was too weak and ignorant,” he went on, not 
noticing my cheerful prophecy. “ I am too easily con- 
fused, and all the good and great things you have here 
only puzzle me. I might have got on if I had been 


128 


LIGHT ON THE DEEP 


strong and gifted with a philosophic mind, capable of 
high development.” 

“ You can do anything you try to do,” I said. 

He only smiled in his gentle way and let me say 
what I would. 

So, he died. 

I was sorry. 

He was a charming youth, and I was very fond of 
him, but — he had no head for Republican Institutions. 

i 


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A TALE OF TO-DAY 



BY 

George Henry Grafton 




















































































































































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